Riddles at the Bottom

The pool was empty at 3 AM, which was exactly why Maya preferred it. She'd been **swimming** nightly since the divorce, cutting through the chlorinated water like she was trying to escape her own reflection. The hotel guests never saw her—they were asleep in rooms that cost more per night than she made in a week.

Tonight, though, she wasn't alone.

A man sat on the edge, his legs submerged, nursing a drink from the poolside bar. He wore a suit that had been expensive three days ago, now rumpled from travel or life or both. Beside him, a loose **cable** snaked from his laptop to the outdoor outlet, glowing faintly where it connected.

"They told me this pool was modeled after the one at the **Sphinx** Hotel in Cairo," he said, without looking up. "Can you see it?"

Maya treaded water, weighing the option of swimming to the other side. Something in his voice stopped her.

"I've never been to Cairo."

"Me neither." He took a sip. "I was supposed to go there for our honeymoon. She left three weeks before the wedding."

The silence stretched between them, heavy with things people only said to strangers in dark places.

"I was supposed to get married last month," Maya said. "He left me for someone he met on a business trip."

The man laughed softly. "Business trips. That's where it all falls apart, isn't it? Or comes together, I suppose, depending on which side you're on."

They stayed like that for hours—her in the water, him at the edge—talking about everything and nothing. His name was James. He worked in data analytics, whatever that meant. He'd been staying at the hotel for five days, avoiding going home to an apartment that still held two people's worth of things.

"The thing about the sphinx," James said as dawn began to gray the sky, "is that it's not just about riddles. It's about what happens when you can't answer them."

Maya pulled herself up to sit beside him, dripping and shivering. "Then what happens?"

"You either move forward or you get eaten." He stood, unplugging his **cable**, closing his laptop. "I'm going home today. I think I'm ready to pack up her things."

"Good luck," she said.

"You too, Maya."

She never saw him again. But sometimes, late at night in the water, she'd remember that some riddles don't need answers—just someone else who doesn't have them either.