09-24-2019, 11:02 PM
She isn’t sure what she had expected when she passed through the threshold, but a desert wasn’t it. Blinking against the brightness of the sun, it’s the sphinx that comes into focus. For a moment – though it is brief – she feels a flicker of fear. She has never come across anything so large, but that fear is quickly replaced by curiosity. Even when the voice booms at her in obvious disapproval, she finds herself stepping forward, wide-eyed and awestruck.
It takes her a moment to realize it was demanding something of her. It had asked her a question – a riddle. When you do not know what I am, then I am something. When you know what I am, then I am nothing. What am I? She frowns in concentration; she didn’t really think herself as much of an intellectual. She preferred the rougher ways of solving problems. The more she thought on it, the more perplexed she became, before finally beginning hesitantly, “Umm...isn’t the answer to that riddle...a riddle?” She shifts her weight, grasping for a way to explain herself. “I mean not knowing what it is makes it a riddle, and once you know the answer it’s no longer a riddle, so it becomes nothing.”
Deciding that’s enough, she steps back, not really sure what’s going to happen if she is wrong.
It takes her a moment to realize it was demanding something of her. It had asked her a question – a riddle. When you do not know what I am, then I am something. When you know what I am, then I am nothing. What am I? She frowns in concentration; she didn’t really think herself as much of an intellectual. She preferred the rougher ways of solving problems. The more she thought on it, the more perplexed she became, before finally beginning hesitantly, “Umm...isn’t the answer to that riddle...a riddle?” She shifts her weight, grasping for a way to explain herself. “I mean not knowing what it is makes it a riddle, and once you know the answer it’s no longer a riddle, so it becomes nothing.”
Deciding that’s enough, she steps back, not really sure what’s going to happen if she is wrong.