Bear Market at the Tropicana
The pool was empty except for Marcus, forty-two and floating in the shallow end, fully clothed. His iPhone rested on the concrete edge, lighting up every thirty seconds with notifications he refused to check. The market was in freefall. His portfolio, his clients, his carefully constructed life—all drowning in a bear market that had arrived without warning.
He'd come to the Tropicana to close a deal. Instead, he'd spent three days watching storm clouds gather over the city, eating vending machine vitamins like they were candy, and wondering when exactly he'd started measuring his worth in quarterly returns.
The first flash of lightning turned the water gold. A moment later, thunder rattled the lounge chairs. Marcus didn't move. He'd stopped moving somewhere around the time his daughter had asked, at breakfast last Sunday, why Daddy never looked at her when she spoke.
"Dad? Are you there?"
The memory hit harder than the market crash. He'd been checking his portfolio on his phone. "Just a second, sweetheart. Daddy's working."
That was the thing about bear markets. They took everything eventually.
His phone buzzed again. His broker. Probably. Or his wife. She'd stopped calling after he'd missed their anniversary dinner for an emergency client meeting. The fifth anniversary.
Rain began to fall, warm and sudden. Marcus let it wash over his face, thinking about the vitamins in his room—a lifetime supply of supplements he'd bought to optimize his performance, extend his edge. What good was living longer if you weren't actually living?
The lightning struck closer now, illuminating the hotel's neon sign. A bear, arms raised in triumph or surrender, he couldn't tell anymore.
Marcus stood up in the waist-deep water. His iPhone sat on the edge, its screen fracturing the darkness with urgent messages. Opportunities. Losses. Demands. The life he'd built, the life that was eating him alive.
He left the phone where it lay.
The bear market would still be there tomorrow. His daughter might not be.