Bull Market Aftermath

Marcus felt like a zombie walking onto the 42nd floor at 7 AM, another day of pretending the numbers meant something. The bull market had been gouging them for months, horns still sharp from the crash, and everyone moved with that same dead-eyed shuffle. He'd lost his house, his marriage, most of his dignity—only the studio apartment and Buster, his ancient golden retriever, remained.

"We're expecting volatility," Crawford announced, his face gleaming with the sweat of a man who'd sold short before the fall. "Opportunity in disarray." Bullshit, Marcus thought. The kind of bull that trampled ordinary people while men like Crawford bought new yachts.

He stared at his screens. Water main break downstairs, someone whispered. Flood in the lobby. Marcus imagined it rising—dark, silent, drowning the trading floor, washing away the charts and projections and the hollow men who believed their own lies.

Buster would be waiting. That thought anchored him through the endless meetings, through Crawford's speech about "resilience" and "American grit." The dog had seen him at his worst, curled on the kitchen floor after Sarah left, and hadn't judged. Just rested that graying muzzle on his knee, steady as breathing.

At 5 PM, Marcus walked out. The water still dripped from the ceiling, pooling on marble already cracked from too many desperate feet. He thought about letting it take him—just lie down and become another statistic, another office zombie who didn't make it.

Then he remembered Buster's particular joy at the door, that full-body wag that said you're home, you're mine, you're enough.

Marcus took the stairs down, away from the rising water, away from the bull and its lies. Toward something real.