Riddles at the Aquarium

The last time they came here, seven years ago, Maya had whispered into his ear: "If we were fish, what kind would you be?" He'd answered without hesitation: goldfish, because their three-second memory would mean forgetting every argument before it began.

Now they stood before the same tank, thousands of silver bodies moving in synchronized current. Beside him, Maya's hands trembled slightly—a side effect of the vitamin regimen, or perhaps something else. She hadn't wanted to tell him about the test results until after dinner. Some reflex.

"The riddle of the sphinx," she said suddenly, pointing to a poster near the exit: What walks on four legs in the morning, two at noon, three in evening?

"We're at noon," he said. "Or maybe approaching evening."

She laughed, but her eyes stayed fixed on the glass. Outside, lightning fractured the sky, the aquarium's interior briefly plunging into darkness. When the emergency lights flickered on, her face was illuminated in eerie blue shadows.

"Do you remember swimming in the Mediterranean?" she asked. "That night in Greece?"

He remembered. They'd been drunk on cheap wine and the certainty that they'd live forever, bobbing in black water beneath constellations he couldn't name. She'd told him she loved him then, and he'd believed that love alone could armor them against time's erosion.

Now the lightning struck closer, thunder rattling the tank walls. The fish continued their endless circling, indifferent to weather, to mortality, to the quiet tragedies of humans observing them.

Maya turned to him. "The test showed markers. Early stage. They want to start treatment next week."

The goldfish darted suddenly, breaking formation.

"We'll swim through it," he said, reaching for her hand. "Like Greece."

"I was hoping," she said, "for a different metaphor."

"What?"

"Maybe we could be sphinxes instead. Maybe we could stop trying to solve the riddle and just pose it."

She squeezed his fingers, and for the first time that evening, he felt the weight in his chest shift—not gone, but somehow distributed between them, bearable.

"Okay," he said. "No more answers. Just questions."

Outside, the storm broke. Rain sheeted against the glass, and somewhere in the distance, real thunder rolled over the city. Inside, the fish kept swimming, and they stood together at the threshold of everything they didn't yet know.