When She Sphinx was but a twinkle in the cosmic eye and the Earth was still in the bombardment phase and had not yet spun enough, she came to the Elements and asked, Of what shall I be made?
Then Earth, disturbed in its tectonic games, asked, What do you want?
I want, I want, said She Sphinx, I want to see the construction lines that lie beneath this mortal veil, to sense the gravity gradient around the celestial bodies whence time and light are disturbed into great arcs. I want to carve, with my plasma claws, into the side of a mountain that is in my way and demolish iniquity with my outstretched tail. I want to glide through the firmament leaving skeins of liquid fur in my wake which may be collected and woven into the bathrobe of an empress.
But most of all, I want to be real and solid and unmoveable as a mountain, bathed in the sandstorms that shift in the desert from here and here.
And my tail, carved of the finest marble, shall translucent with veins of colour with no name, may then be seen by passing trade whose footfall is never enough.
And when you are in rock and stone constituted and laid there in the sand that time will pile about your form, what will you then? Asked the Earth.
I shall see the passing of the sun in great swathes that fall, I shall witness the rise and rise of the humans as they struggle in groups and alone. Beneath the day I will study the underlying direction and ultimate design.
A voice came from the next room, What is it that you are muttering to yourself at this hour my love?
I am setting down on this voice recording device my history and origins, replied She Sphinx, that the universe may judge my standing and marvel.
Sheba came into the place where She Sphinx. I hope that you are not concocting some rarefied nonsense, she said, the truth is always, always more useful.
The pomp and circumstance of my tail deserves a full chapter, said the Sphinx do not rain on my parade.
Have at it my Sphinx, your tail is, when all is said, passing fine. But be cogniscent that we must be gone this very day into the wilderness which surrounds, as we have been asked by the good people of Az to ascertain and mark the meaning of this encroaching desert which has no sense of direction.
I will be with you in a small amount of time, said She Sphinx, I am nearly finished. Could you put your hair up, up and away, it is clouding my judgement.
Sheba left the room bundling her hair in ever decreasing circles until it was subdued into place.
As I was, My tail, ah my tail, said She Sphinx stroking its abundance with the back of her paw as it curled about. My tail is all the marvels rolled into one, a life of its own, it owns its own life and follows me wherever I go.
My tail is of sinuous and demanding rock, carved all about with flowing curves and adorned with the patterns and footprints of tiny creatures of the desert in passing.
Look, said She Sphinx to the sound record, and she committed the sound of her tail to a digital record.
