Riddles at the Edge

The desert heat pressed against the hotel room window as Elena signed the divorce papers. Her hand didn't tremble — not anymore. Three years of marriage dissolved into paperwork and a flight to Luxor she'd booked on impulse.

"We should talk about this," David had said, his lawyer's voice measured and calm. But there was nothing left to say.

Now she stood at the edge of the infinity **pool**, its surface blurring with the horizon. An American woman in her late twenties, she'd come here to disappear, but the hotel was full of couples — honeymooners, retirees, people still believing in forever. The irony tasted bitter.

A skinny stray **cat** wound around her legs, its ribs visible beneath matted fur. She knelt, offering it water from her cupped hands. It lapped desperately, then disappeared into the shadows of the hotel gardens.

"They say the Great Sphinx asks riddles," a voice said beside her.

She turned to find an Egyptian man in his fifties, silver-haired, holding two glasses of whiskey. "Hassan. I work at the front desk. You look like someone who's answered too many riddles already."

She accepted the drink. "Something like that."

They sat in silence watching the **water** reflect the sunset — gold bleeding into red into purple. Hassan told her about his wife's death three years ago, about how he'd stopped asking why. "The real **sphinx**," he said, "is not the one made of stone. It's the question of whether we ever truly know anyone. Even ourselves."

The cat returned, settling beside Elena as if it belonged there. She realized she wasn't crying anymore. Tomorrow she'd fly back to Chicago, start over, maybe adopt a stray of her own.

Some riddles don't have answers. Some stories don't have happy endings. But the sun still rose over the Nile, and the cat still purred, and the water still caught the light.

That was enough.