The Riddle of Empty Rooms

The bottle of vitamin D sat on her nightstand, a daily reminder of what the doctor called 'seasonal affective disorder' but what Mara knew was just the weight of living alone. She swallowed the gel capsule dry, just as she had every morning since Lucas left.

They'd met on a padel court three years ago—a chance pairing when his partner canceled. She remembered the way his sweat-darkened shirt clung to his back, the competitive spark in his eyes that matched her own. They played together every Sunday after that, the rhythmic *thwack* of the ball against the glass walls becoming the soundtrack to their blooming affair. Now she couldn't drive past the club without feeling sick.

The swimming pool offered a different kind of solitude. At 5 AM, the water was glass-smooth and cold enough to shock her out of the spiral of thoughts that kept her awake at night. There was something primal about slicing through the water, her body reduced to its essential mechanics—breathe, stroke, kick—while her mind could finally float untethered.

It was there, surfacing from a lap, that she understood what the ancient Egyptians meant with the sphinx. We were all riddles wrapped in human skin, posing questions we couldn't answer ourselves. What walks on four legs in the morning, two at noon, three in the evening? A human life, crumbling in stages.

Lucas had been her riddle, and she'd spent three years thinking she'd solved him. But the sphinx never gave up its secrets. Some people were meant to remain mysteries—beautiful, inscrutable, ultimately unknowable.

She pulled herself from the pool, water dripping from her elbows like lost time. The morning light filtered through high windows, catching on the ripples she'd left behind. The vitamins would wait. The padel racket gathering dust in her closet would wait.

Mara wrapped herself in a towel and watched the water smooth over, already forgetting she'd been there.