Market Corrections

David stared at the terminal. Bear market. Again. His portfolio had been bleeding for three months, and the red numbers swam before his eyes like angry fish—no, like sharks, circling, waiting.

"You need to take your vitamin D," Sarah had said that morning, pressing the supplement into his palm. "You're inside all day. It's seasonal depression."

He'd pocketed it without protest. She was probably right. She usually was. That was the problem.

The elevator ride down to the street felt like descending into a cave. His phone buzzed—Marcus from the firm. "Bull run on crypto, you in?"

David stepped out into gray Seattle rain and walked toward the waterfront without responding. The office gym. He'd started going during lunch, desperate to feel something other than the dull weight of expectations—the mortgage, the promotions, the five-year plan Sarah had outlined on their whiteboard with different colored markers.

The pool was empty at 2 PM. He swam laps, counting strokes, trying to outpace the voice in his head asking when he'd become this person. This man who checked his portfolio before his wife's sleeping face in the morning. This man who measured life in quarterly returns.

His shoulder twinged—an old injury from college, back when he'd still been reckless enough to climb things. His vitamin sat on the pool deck beside his towel, a small orange promise he kept ignoring.

"You're carrying the weight of the world, bear." His father's nickname for him, dead ten years now. David had hated it then. He understood it now.

He floated on his back, staring at the ceiling, listening to the water lapping against his ears. Something broke open in his chest—a realization that had been surfacing for months, rising like a body from deep water.

He didn't want the bull run. He didn't want to wait for the market to turn.

David climbed out of the pool, water streaming from his skin. He picked up the vitamin, swallowed it dry, and dialed Sarah.

"I'm done," he said when she answered. "I want to sell the house. I want to open that restaurant we talked about in grad school. The one by the lake."

Silence. Then, softly: "I've been waiting seven years for you to say that."

The rain hadn't stopped, but for the first time in years, David wanted to walk through it.