The Goldfish at the Top

Elena adjusted her fedora, the brim catching on the edge of her cubicle wall as she turned toward the corner office. The hat was her armor, a small rebellion against the corporate dress code that demanded conformity. She'd worn it every day since Marcus died.

The office aquarium bubbled in the breakroom, its sole goldfish swimming endless circles in water that hadn't been changed in three months. Elena sometimes wondered if the fish remembered the other two—how they'd disappeared one by one while she watched through glass walls, too paralyzed to intervene.

"Pyramid scheme," she whispered to herself, the phrase her father had used to describe her career choice. Corporate ladders, he'd called them, but he'd meant something else. Something about who rose to the top and who got crushed beneath the weight of others climbing.

Her phone buzzed. Another message from David, the senior partner whose office sat at the pyramid's apex. *We need to discuss your future here.* The same future he'd been dangling like carrot on a stick for six months, since she'd found the discrepancies in the quarterly reports.

She remembered the water cooler conversation she'd overheard—David and another VP laughing about "making an example" of someone. How her hands had shaken so badly she'd dropped her coffee, the dark liquid spreading across the white carpet like accusation.

The goldfish surfaced, mouth opening and closing at the water's surface. Elena pressed her forehead against the cool glass. She could stay, could climb higher on bodies she pretended not to see. Could become what she hated.

Or she could walk.

She removed her hat, smoothed her hair, and placed it on her desk beside her resignation letter. The goldfish swam on, indifferent to revolutions. But for the first time in years, Elena could breathe.