Riddles in the Deep End

The hotel pool shimmered like liquid mercury under the desert moon when Elena found me there, floating on my back, staring up at stars that felt too distant to matter anymore. "You're going to turn into a prune, friend," she said, her voice carrying that familiar mix of concern and detachment that had defined our friendship since college.

I didn't move. The water held me like a lover who'd stayed too long—comforting, suffocating, impossible to push away. "Just thinking about Benji's riddle today at the office. He asked what walks on four legs in the morning, two at noon, three in evening."

"A sphinx riddle." Elena slipped into the pool beside me, her movements graceful despite the third martini she'd confessed to at the hotel bar. "The answer's a man. Though God knows most men I've known never progressed past the crawling stage."

Her dark humor should've made me laugh. Instead, I felt tears salt the pool around me. Benji—my boss, my lover, my existential crisis—had dropped that riddle in today's meeting like a clue I couldn't quite decode. While everyone else chuckled, I'd seen it for what it was: his way of announcing his departure. Benji, who'd collected other people's secrets like rare coins, was leaving me with pockets full of questions.

"He's leaving, isn't he?" Elena asked, reading me as easily as she had when we were twenty and crying over dissertation failures.

"Tomorrow. Singapore." I finally looked at her. "You're like a sphinx yourself, El. Always knowing before I say it."

She treaded water, studying me. "Some riddles answer themselves, Maya. The question is whether you'll let yourself drown waiting for someone else to save you, or remember you learned to swim years ago."

The pool lights flickered. In the distortion of waves and distance, Elena's face became something ancient, patient—part friend, part mirror, part reminder that I'd survived every drowning before this one. I kicked toward the surface, breaking through with lungs full of air, ready at last to climb out of the deep end.