Riddles by the Pool

The corporate retreat was exactly what Mara expected: a collection of middle managers moving like zombies between breakout sessions, their glazed eyes fixed on PowerPoint presentations about synergy and vision. She found herself by the hotel pool at dusk, watching the water shimmer like liquid amber under the fading light.

Her phone buzzed again. Another text from David: "We need to talk about the house."

She'd left her iPhone in the room, but the phantom vibrations persisted—a muscle memory of a marriage that had been ghosting her for months. What was there to discuss? The orange tiles in the kitchen they'd fought over? The way he'd stopped asking about her day?

She slipped into the pool, swimming laps with a precision that felt like rebellion against the chaos in her head. The water was cool, silencing everything. This was the only place she could think, really think, about the riddle her life had become.

At the pool's edge stood a concrete sphinx, its wings half-spread, mouth frozen in that eternal enigmatic smile. Some terrible replica, likely purchased to give the place an air of sophistication it didn't deserve. Yet Mara found herself treading water before it, staring into its stone eyes.

"What's the riddle?" she whispered. "What walks on four legs in the morning, two at noon, and three in the evening—and still doesn't know who the fuck it is?"

The sphinx offered no answers. Only the distant laughter of her colleagues, another round of cocktails, the endless cycle of performance and pretense.

Mara swam to the edge and pulled herself out, water dripping from her skin like she was being born again. She knew what she had to do. Not about David. Not about the house. About everything.

The answer wasn't in the riddle. It was in the asking.