Lightning Strikes the Bull

The bull market had finally gored him, and Marcus watched his portfolio bleed red across three monitors. Outside, a proper storm rattled the windows of his corner office—the kind of tempest that makes you question your life choices.

His iPhone buzzed with her text: 'Are you still at the office?'

Marcus stared at the charging cable, its white cord frayed at the bend where he'd wrapped it too tight around his fingers during anxious nights. He'd stopped answering Elena's calls three days ago, somewhere around the time the index futures began their freefall. The silence between them had grown thicker than the humidity pressing against the glass.

He reached for his lucky fedora, the ridiculous hat he'd worn during every major trade since 2018. It sat atop his filing cabinet like a dormant totem. His colleagues had mocked it mercilessly—'You look like a mobster from a bad indie film,' Sarah had said during the Christmas party—but he'd worn it anyway. Superstition was the only religion that still made sense to him.

A flash of lightning illuminated the trading floor below, ghostly and empty at 2 AM. He pressed send on a text to Elena: 'I'm coming home.' Then, because his thumb had its own momentum, he deleted it.

The bull was dead. He knew this with the cold clarity that comes after sleepless nights. The market had turned, and with it, the version of himself he'd built on leverage and luck. He unplugged the cable from his phone, watched the battery percentage drop one percent, then two.

Some debts aren't financial.

Marcus stood and put on the hat. In the reflection of the darkened window, he looked like a stranger—softened around the edges, wearing costume jewelry of his own making. The storm had passed, leaving behind that strange electric calm that follows violence. He walked out of his office, leaving his iPhone on the desk, its screen still lit with Elena's unanswered text.

The elevator descended. For the first time in years, he didn't check the market futures. He didn't check anything at all.