The Glass Pyramid

Elena stared at the corporate headquarters—a glass pyramid rising from the suburban sprawl like some monument to ambition she'd stopped understanding three promotions ago.

At her desk, the office betting pool spreadsheet glowed: baby names, retirement dates, who'd be the first to cry in the all-hands meeting. She'd put fifty bucks on Martinez from accounting—dark horse, "going to snap like a dry twig."

"You participating in the goldfish migration?" asked Chen, leaning against her cubicle wall. It was what they called the massive employee turnover. People flushed out, new ones swimming in, memory loss collective and convenient.

Elena rubbed her temples. "I'm still processing the restructure."

"The bear market in department morale continues," Chen said, then dropped his voice. "Word is, they're moving us all to open concept. No walls. Zero privacy."

She thought of her father, out in Wyoming somewhere, probably explaining to someone that he'd worked the same coal mine for thirty years because a man bears what he must. A different kind of pyramid scheme, really—trading years for stability.

Her phone buzzed. Her brother, asking if she'd reconsider coming home for Thanksgiving. She'd been dodging the call for weeks.

Lunch was a sad spinach salad from the cafeteria, wilted leaves coating her teeth in something that tasted like obligation. She ate it anyway, watching the goldfish in the lobby aquarium dart between plastic castles, none of them ever noticing they were swimming in circles.

What was she thirty thousand in debt for again? The MBA? The apartment she barely saw?

She opened the betting pool spreadsheet and deleted her entry. Then she typed something new under "other wagers": one month's salary on Elena Rodriguez walking out before Christmas.

Her finger hovered over the submit button.

The goldfish in the lobby aquarium leaped—just once, barely clearing the water's surface before splashing back down. Elena watched it settle into the current again, safe and contained and utterly mistaken about the world's size.

She hit submit.

Standing, Elena grabbed her coat. The pyramid outside caught the afternoon sun, throwing prisms across her desk, across the spreadsheet, across everything she'd built here like it mattered.

"Where you going?" Chen called.

"To collect," she said.

The glass doors parted for her like water.