Glass Walls

The goldfish swam in its third circumference of the morning, and Elena wondered if it knew it was trapped or if it believed the plastic castle was a palace. She'd inherited the fish from Mark—the only thing he'd left behind that wasn't debt or betrayal.

"You're going to lose everything," he'd told her two months ago, sitting at her kitchen table with that familiar condescending tilt to his mouth. "This pyramid scheme you've bought into—it's going to collapse."

The irony still tasted like blood in her throat. Mark had been her oldest friend, the one person she'd trusted to understand why she'd sunk her inheritance into this startup. Why she believed. And he'd been right, of course. The company had collapsed last week, taking forty thousand dollars and her dignity with it.

The office phone trilled. Elena stared at it. Another investor wanting answers she didn't have. Another reminder that she'd been the bull waving the red flag, convincing others to jump into the ring with her.

Her eyes drifted back to the fishbowl. Mark had bought the goldfish as a joke—"because you've got the memory of one, El, always falling for the same tricks." She'd laughed then. She wasn't laughing now.

The fish nudged its plastic castle again and again, never realizing the walls were transparent. Never understanding that freedom was inches away, impossible to reach.

Elena stood up and walked to the bowl. Her fingers hovered over the rim. She could open it. She could pour it into the sink, watch it spiral toward something else. Or she could leave it swimming in circles, believing it was going somewhere.

"Stupid fish," she whispered.

Her phone buzzed again—Mark this time. Probably calling to say I told you so. Probably calling because somehow, in the wreckage of her failure, he still thought they were friends.

The goldfish rose to the surface, mouth opening and closing in the silent water, waiting for food that might never come.

Elena sat back down and let it ring.