Riddles by the Neon Pool

The infinity pool at the Bellagio reflected Vegas lights like shattered jewels. Elena's iPhone vibrated against the lounger—David's text: *We need to talk.* Again.

Thirty years of marriage reduced to notification tones.

Lightning fractured the desert sky. The storm had been threatening for hours, a tension gathering like the ache behind her eyes. She'd come to this conference alone, seeking something—clarity, escape, she wasn't sure anymore.

"Riddles," the old man in the adjacent cabana said, startling her. He gestured toward the hotel's Egyptian courtyard across the water, where a Sphinx replica watched through the rain. "That's what marriage becomes, isn't it? Questions without answers."

Elena hadn't noticed him approach. He looked seventy, with eyes that had seen too much.

"My husband wants to talk," she found herself saying. "Again."

"Men always want to talk when they've already decided." Lightning struck closer, illuminating the lines around his mouth. "The Sphinx asked: what walks on four legs in the morning, two at noon, three in evening? The answer is man. But the real question is: what walks on two legs until it learns to stand alone?"

Her iPhone lit up again. *I've met someone.*

The rain came then, warm and sudden. She didn't move. The pool's surface rippled with each drop, distorting the neon reflection until it became something else entirely—maybe the beginning of something, maybe just water bending light.

"The riddle's not about him," the old man said, already turning away. "It's about what you'll do when the storm clears."

Elena deleted David's message without responding. She watched the Sphinx across the dark water, its stone face impassive, knowing something the old man had said: some answers aren't found. They're made.

The lightning flashed again, and for the first time in thirty years, she didn't flinch.