The Sphinx

The Sphinx tells Oedipus the answer to the riddle in order to kill herself, and also to make him love her. The Sphinx dies, Oedipus moves on. But what if both survive?

It didn't take me long to realize that I love you. I never think twice, not in matters like these. I wanted to care for you as if you were a baby, heal your soul and stitch you together piece by piece, I’m an awful seamstress, but I know I could do that. I know this is not what you wanted. But life is funny, isn’t it?

One summer day, long before we met, we sat beside each other in a café. From my angle, I could see your face clearly, and I looked, looked, looked for all the things that others can't see. I remember your absent gaze, as if you were not entirely there. I remember how you moved, and the woman you were with. You reminded me of someone I hadn’t met. I wanted to tell you my name, but we never spoke.

I connected with your childhood memories, your favourite philosophers, your seeking, chaotic nature, and the way you process the world around you. I saw myself in you, an incomplete, distorted image, but I could make it whole by staying there, and fill the empty spots. Through getting to know you, I rediscovered myself and I think I would like to stay that way.

You were a brief wave of happiness, a promise of something I’ve been waiting for, you appeared out of nowhere and in one moment you were gone. The memory of you inhabits my mind, but there is no pain, no misery, I can finally see you for who you are. And I believe in you, maybe even more than you believe in yourself. Because you are real.

Now I know that there is no sorrow, there is no death, there is no sorrow and no death, there is nothing that separates me from my memories, whether they happened, whether I want them to happen, and I know that you, like others before you, became a part of me, and just like others before me, I became a part of you. And this will not change.

The cover: "The Sphinx or The Caress" by Fernand Khnopff