Bull Market, Dead Inside

Mara stared at the terminal, numbers scrolling like ticker tape across her retinas even when she closed her eyes. Three years on the desk and she'd become something else—something that wore suits and nodded at strategy meetings while something inside quietly rotted. A zombie in designer heels.

"This bull run has legs," Thompson was saying, his index finger stabbing at the upward trajectory on the screen. "Another eighteen months, easy."

The bull. Always the bull. Mara had stopped seeing the majestic animal years ago. Now it was just market forces, momentum, the collective delusion that value could be conjured from air. She'd watched three colleagues crater under the weight of it—the burnout, the cocaine, the quiet conversations in bathrooms about how nothing mattered anymore.

Her phone buzzed. David: *dinner?*

They'd ended things two months ago after he called her hollow. She'd wanted to argue, but the accusation had landed too close to bone. She was hollow. She was a vessel for other people's money, other people's bets, other people's fears.

The cable running from the wall to her monitor vibrated slightly—a gentle tremor in the infrastructure of her life. Everything was connected now. Her apartment, filled with furniture she'd ordered drunk at 2 AM. Her inbox, overflowing with demands disguised as opportunities. Her body, showing up when commanded, performing enthusiasm she no longer felt.

"Mara? You with us?"

She blinked. Thompson was watching her, waiting.

"Sorry," she said. "Just thinking about legs."

"Bull's legs."

"Right. The bull's legs."

She thought about David's legs tangled in hers on Sunday mornings, coffee cups on the nightstand, the luxury of having nowhere to be. She thought about her father, dead five years now, who'd worked himself into an early grave chasing his own version of the bull. She thought about the cable guy who'd installed her internet last month—how he'd told her he used to be a lawyer, how he seemed happier climbing poles than she'd ever been in this building.

"You know what," Mara said, standing up. Her chair made a soft sound against the carpet. "I don't think I believe in the bull anymore."

Thompson laughed, confused. "What?"

She walked out, past the zombie-faced junior analysts, past the bull markets and bear markets and all the predictable animals of finance. Outside, the air was cold and real. She pulled out her phone and typed: *yes. dinner. anywhere. *

The cable would still be there tomorrow. But she was done being a conduit for other people's dreams.