Glass Walls

The corporate pyramid rose forty stories above Chicago, each level a narrower circle of power than the last. Elena had reached the thirty-eighth floor, her corner office offering panoramic views of a city that looked increasingly like circuit boards from this height.

"You should come to the party," Marcus said, leaning against her doorframe. He'd been her work friend for seven years, the one person who remembered when she still brought homemade lunch and talked about opening her own architecture firm someday. "Goldfish bowl," he called her cube back then—always swimming, never going anywhere.

She stared at the actual goldfish bowl on her desk, a birthday gift from Marcus three years ago. The fish, whose name she'd forgotten, had outlived two marriages and three promotions. It swam in its endless circles, and she realized with sudden clarity that she was the one in the bowl.

"I can't," she said. "The Singapore deal closes at midnight."

Marcus's smile didn't reach his eyes. "Right. The pyramid." He left, and she noticed for the first time that he'd stopped bringing homemade lunch years ago. Stopped talking about his own dreams. They'd become each other's enablers, two goldfish convincing themselves the glass walls were there for their protection.

She opened her desk drawer and found the old sketchbook, pages yellowed, filled with buildings that curved and twisted—nothing like the cold geometric towers she now designed for maximum efficiency. The last drawing was dated the week she'd stopped being the person who brought homemade lunch.

The goldfish surfaced, mouth opening and closing in silent repetition. Elena stood up, turned off her computer, and walked out of her corner office for the last time. Some nights, she decided, you had to break the bowl to remember there was an ocean.