The Riddle of Waiting Rooms

The hospital waiting room smelled of antiseptic and despair. Martin sat in the corner, watching the goldfish swim endless laps in a three-gallon tank on the reception desk. The fish's memory was supposed to last only seconds, a blessing he envied. If he could forget every three seconds, maybe he wouldn't remember the phone call that brought him here.

His iPhone buzzed in his pocket—his sister, again. He'd ignored six calls already. Some messages you didn't need to hear to understand.

"He keeps asking for the sphinx," the nurse had said earlier, confused.

Martin knew. The obsidian sphinx figurine had sat on their father's desk for thirty years, a paperweight for papers containing riddles he'd never let anyone solve. What are you hiding, Dad? Who were you before you were our father? The sphinx's limestone smile promised answers it would never give.

"You can't expect him to bear his soul to you," his wife had said during their last argument, the one that ended their marriage. "Some mysteries are meant to stay buried."

Now, staring at that plastic goldfish swimming its tiny circle, Martin understood. We all live in bowls of our own making, convinced there's something beyond the glass. His father's sphinx was just a statue. His wife's words were just words. The iPhone in his pocket held only recordings, only echoes.

The doctor emerged. Martin stood up, his joints popping. His father was awake, asking for him. The riddles would remain unsolved. The goldfish would keep swimming. And somehow, you had to bear it—the not knowing, the leaving, the loving anyway.