What the Sphinx Knows

The cardboard box sat on my desk like a coffin. Inside: a framed photo of my daughter, a coffee mug that said 'WORLD'S OKAYEST DAD', and my lucky hat—the same fedora I'd worn to every interview for fifteen years. Security would escort me out in ten minutes.

'I'm not sick,' I told Dr. Chen for the third time, staring at the plastic vitamin C bottle on her desk. 'I just need something for the anxiety.'

'You're forty-two, Marcus. Your blood pressure suggests otherwise.' She tapped her pen. 'Stress manifests physically.'

Outside her office, rain streaked the windows like television static. I thought about calling Sarah—my oldest friend, the one who still sent holiday cards even after I missed her wedding—but what would I say? *I failed again. The start-up cratered. The divorce finalized last month. My kid asked why I never come to her soccer games.*

The severance package would buy me time, maybe two months of rent and child support. Then what?

That evening, I sat on the floor of my half-empty apartment, internet cables snaking through the dust like lazy serpents. My laptop glowed with rejection emails, each one a variation of the same polite *we've decided to move forward with other candidates.*

My father's voice echoed in memory: *A man is what he does.* The sphinx's riddle, updated for the corporate age.

I opened the vitamin bottle and swallowed three pills dry. Stomach acid or hope—hard to tell which burned more.

Sarah called at midnight. 'Marcus, you idiot. Come stay with us. The kids miss you.'

'I'm fine,' I lied, adjusting my hat in the mirror even though no one could see me.

'Bullshit.' Her voice softened. 'Remember what we used to say about rock bottom?'

'That it's a solid foundation.'

'Exactly. Pack a bag.'

The sphinx asks what walks on four legs, then two, then three. But nobody asks about the years in between—the times you're on two legs but feeling like you've got none at all, dragging yourself through the days because something inside you refuses to quit.

I put the hat in the box with the rest of it. Tomorrow, I'd drive north. Tomorrow, I'd figure out who Marcus was without the job, without the title, without the paycheck that had defined him for two decades.

Tonight, I took another vitamin. I called my daughter. I told her I loved her.

The riddle wasn't about who I used to be. It was about who I was becoming.