The Riddle at the Edge of the Pool

Miranda stood at the edge of the Bellagio pool, clutching her vitamin supplement case like it was a rosary. The plastic compartments clicked softly—A, C, D, E, the alphabet of her desperate attempt to feel something again. Anything.

The water lapped against the tiles, hypnotic and merciless. She'd come here with Julian three years ago, when they still believed they could solve each other. Now she was alone, watching couples drift past in the artificial twilight of the casino's atrium.

"You look like you're waiting for an answer."

She turned. An older woman sat at the nearby table, her face a roadmap of decisions made and survived. A small brass sphinx figurine sat between her empty glass and the elegant curve of her palm, resting on the white tablecloth like a question mark.

"I'm not sure I remember the question," Miranda said.

The woman smiled, revealing teeth too perfect to be entirely honest. "The sphinx asks: what walks on four legs in the morning, two at noon, three in the evening?" She traced the life line on her own palm. "But the real riddle is simpler. What do we become when we stop becoming something for someone else?"

Miranda looked at her own hand, the lines intersecting like failed negotiations. "Julian always said I was too much. Too intense, too fragile, too...

"Human?"

"Alive."

The woman nodded toward the vitamin case. "Trying to supplement what's missing?"

"Trying to survive the withdrawal." Miranda's voice cracked. "Three months of cold turkey from us."

"And yet you're still here."

"I don't know why."

The woman reached across the table, took Miranda's hand. Her palm was warm, dry, certain. "The answer to the sphinx's riddle is 'man.' We crawl, we walk, we lean. But the answer to the other one—what we become when we stop becoming for others—that's different."

She pressed something into Miranda's palm. A single casino chip. Worth ten thousand dollars.

"We become ourselves," she said. "And that's either the jackpot or the house edge."

Miranda stood at the edge of the pool for a long time after the woman left. The water reflected the artificial stars of the ceiling, the sphinx on the distant hotel facade staring back at her with its inscrutable smile. She opened her vitamin case and tipped the entire alphabet of her desperate remedies into the water. They disappeared without a ripple.

Then she walked toward the casino floor, the chip in her palm burning like a question she was finally ready to answer.