The Riddle in Your Palm

Elena traced the lifeline on her palm, wondering how many years remained etched in her skin. Forty-two, and the maps on her hands showed no destination she recognized.

"You need more iron," Dr. Chen had said that morning, sliding a paper prescription across the desk. "And these vitamins." Elena had nodded, already planning the spinach salads, the morning handfuls of supplements that would fix what time was slowly dismantling.

Now she sat across from Marcus at the bistro where they'd first met twelve years ago. The evening sun caught the golden flecks in his brown eyes—eyes that had once watched her with hunger and now held something softer, more distant. Like he knew something she didn't.

"I was thinking," Marcus said, pushing spinach around his plate with his fork. "Maybe we should talk about—"

"The sphinx," Elena interrupted, the word falling between them like an unexpected stone. "That riddle you told me about once. What walks on four legs in the morning, two at noon, three in the evening."

Marcus blinked. "That was years ago, El. Why bring that up?"

"Because I keep thinking about the answer. Man. He crawls, he walks, he leans on a cane." She picked up her wine glass. "But that's not really it, is it? The sphinx was destroyed by Oedipus, and the answer destroyed him too. Knowing who you are, where you come from—sometimes it's better not to know."

Marcus set down his fork. His phone lit up on the table—her name, his thumbnail showing some younger version of himself smiling. He didn't pick it up.

"The vitamins," he said quietly. "The ones you bought last week? I threw them out."

Elena's pulse quickened. "Why?"

"Because you're not sick, Elena. You're just..." He reached across the table, and for the first time in months, his palm covered hers. "You're just scared that the middle of the story is all there is."

The sphinx's riddle had been about time and decay. But maybe the real riddle was this: how two people could sit across from each other, hold hands, and still not know whose story they were living.

Outside, the evening deepened into purple and blue. Somewhere beyond the restaurant windows, the future waited—its answer already written, already spoken, already walking toward them on whatever number of legs they had left.