The Weight of Riddles

The sphinx statue in the lobby had become a running joke at the office. We'd walk past it every morning, that granite face asking questions none of us could answer anymore. What walks on four legs in the morning, two at noon? A person who hasn't been laid off by noon, apparently.

I ate my spinach salad at my desk alone, watching the rain streak against the thirty-second floor windows. Elena, from accounting, used to make these amazing salads before she took the package last month. Now I was just trying to keep my cholesterol down while the company bled out around me. You can't tell your mother you're forty-two and afraid to check your blood pressure.

The bear of it—that's how David from HR used to say it. The bear of the quarterly reports, the bear of the merger talks, the bear of wondering who'd be next. David wasn't saying much anymore. He'd been made redundant on Tuesday.

I drove to the community center after work, same as I had every Thursday for six years. The pool was nearly empty. Just me and the receding echo of whistles and laughter from the afternoon's swim lessons. I slipped into the water, that familiar shock of cold, and began my laps.

Swimming had always been the only time my mind went quiet. No spreadsheets, no worried emails, no sphinx-like riddles about what happens when your industry dies. Just the rhythm of breath, the pull of water against skin, the blue tile at the far end approaching and receding.

But tonight, somewhere between lap forty and fifty, I stopped. I tread water in the middle of the pool, watching the ceiling lights ripple and dance. I thought about Elena starting her bakery, David finally writing that novel he'd talked about for years. The sphinx wasn't asking riddles anymore. She was demanding answers.

I swam to the edge and pulled myself out, dripping onto the concrete. Tomorrow I'd call Elena. Tomorrow I'd update my resume. Tomorrow I'd stop eating spinach at my desk like a penance.

Tonight, I'd go home and sleep.