Riddle of the Empty Tank

The goldfish hovered at the surface of its bowl, mouth opening and closing in silent perpetual motion. Elena had bought it three months before she left, naming it Oedipus because she said its bulging eyes reminded her of the sphinx—some ancient riddle swimming in cheap glass.

Marcus stood in the kitchen of his apartment, eating cold spinach straight from the Tupperware container. The cable guy had come and gone earlier that day, replacing the fried box that had died during last night's storm. Now the television flickered with perfect clarity, broadcasting a baseball game that meant nothing to anyone anymore.

"You never try to solve anything," Elena had said, packing her books into cardboard boxes. "You just float there like that stupid fish, waiting to be fed."

The truth was, Marcus had solved plenty of riddles in his life. He'd solved the riddle of how to make forty-eight years disappear into routine—how to turn a philosophy degree into a career installing cable for people who streamed Netflix anyway. He'd solved the riddle of marriage by not asking questions. He'd solved the riddle of existence by not asking that either.

The baseball players on screen went through their motions—pitch, swing, miss. Sphinx-like in their own way, proposing riddles with every throw. What walks on four legs in the morning, two in the afternoon, and crawls into a bottle of whiskey at night?

Marcus dropped another pinch of spinach into the fishbowl. Oedipus darted toward it, then away, as if reconsidering hunger itself.

"I asked her once why she stayed," Marcus said aloud to the empty room. "She said she was waiting for me to figure out the answer."

The cable bill was due tomorrow. The spinach would last another two meals. The fish might survive another week. Elena wasn't coming back.

On television, the batter finally connected. The ball sailed toward the upper deck, a brief moment of impossible grace against gravity. Marcus watched it rise, and for the first time in three months, he found himself wondering what riddle he was still trying to solve, and whether the answer had been swimming beside him all along.