The Glass Bowl

The office goldfish died on a Tuesday, which seemed appropriate somehow. Elena found him floating at the top of the bowl during her lunch break, fins fanned like a tragic flag. He'd been the closest thing to confidant she had in this place.

"You're being dramatic," she told herself, but her hands shook as she reached for the net.

Marcus from IT appeared in the doorway, holding a coaxial cable like a dead snake. "Network upgrade," he said by way of explanation, then gestured toward the bowl. "That's the fourth one this quarter."

"They keep committing suicide," Elena said, then immediately regretted it. She hadn't meant to say it aloud—hadn't meant to acknowledge the thought that had been circling her mind for weeks.

Marcus's expression didn't change. "Or maybe they just know something we don't."

That night, Elena couldn't sleep. She kept thinking about Marcus's words, about the way he'd looked at her—not with pity, but with recognition. Three months ago, she'd discovered a packet sniffer on the company network. Corporate espionage, she'd assumed. She'd reported it to HR, who'd promised an investigation that never materialized.

Now she lay beside her husband of eight years, watching the fish tank in their bedroom glow softly in the dark, and the pieces finally aligned. The cable Marcus had been holding hadn't been for an upgrade. It had been for installation.

Her husband worked in the same building. Different department, same network.

She rose quietly, padded to his home office. His laptop was closed, but a cable ran from it to the wall—one she'd never noticed before. She followed it with her fingers, heart hammering, until she reached the small router tucked behind a bookshelf.

Corporate espionage. It hadn't been a competitor. It had been her own husband, spying on her colleagues, on her emails. And HR had covered it up because he was the CFO's golden boy.

The fish in their bedroom tank swam lazily, unaware. Elena thought about the office goldfish, how they kept dying in that glass bowl—how perhaps they hadn't been committing suicide at all.

She returned to bed, curled around her husband's sleeping form, and understood for the first time what it meant to be the one who stayed in the bowl while someone else looked in.