I work in a box made of glass. Glass windows, glass doors, glass walls. I worry that one day I’ll be daydreaming and walk right into one of them. Where are bird stickers when you need them?

The glass begins in the lobby, where two sets of clear doors must be pushed or pulled to enter or exit. The lobby is so bright that I slip on my sunglasses the minute I step out of the elevator.

The glass continues upstairs where it’s easy to see who’s in or out, who’s meeting or on the phone. It’s that kind of place, which is to say transparent and modern and open and good. We’re all the same here, the glass box seems to say. We understand each other. We do not throw stones.

Except that the writer in me wants to be tucked away in a study carrel on the least used floor of the most arcane library in town. The writer in me wants shelter and coziness, dim light and nonreflective surfaces.