Questions Without Answers

The pool was empty at 3 AM, which was exactly what Elena needed. The swimming had become her escape—silent laps through chlorinated water where decisions couldn't reach her. Back and forth, twenty-five meters at a time, while her marriage disintilated across town in their king-sized bed.

She surfaced near the edge where the sphinx lounged on her third-floor balcony. Elena knew it was just a statue—some pretentious garden ornament the previous owners had left behind—but sometimes, in her whiskey-lonely insomnia, it seemed to watch her. Those stone eyes, that enigmatic smile. What riddles would it ask? Why did you stay so long? Why do you think you deserve to be happy? What do you actually want?

The questions dissolved in the water. That was the point. Here, no one needed answers.

A flash of movement on the balcony above. Elena treaded water, squinting upward through the murkiness of outdoor lighting. A cat—lean, orange, impossibly graceful—padded along the railing. It paused, looked down at her swimming in circles, then at the sphinx beside it. Judgment day, delivered by stray animals and garden sculptures.

"At least one of us knows what she's doing," Elena whispered.

The cat's tail flicked once, dismissively, before it disappeared into the darkness. Elena laughed softly, the sound swallowed by the night. She'd forgotten what she was swimming toward anyway.

Tomorrow, Mark would ask what she wanted for dinner like everything was fine. Tomorrow, she'd probably say nothing was wrong. But here, now, the sphinx kept its secrets, the cat had better places to be, and Elena realized she'd been swimming in place all along.

She climbed out of the pool, water dripping from a body that felt suddenly like someone else's. Some riddles don't have answers. Some questions, you stop asking.