Market of Lost Things

Margot stared at the red numbers cascading down her screen like blood from a paper cut. Another bear market, another month of sleeping with her phone clutched in her fist like a rosary. The iPhone lit up again—David's third text this hour. She couldn't bear to read them, not with the bulls running wild on Wall Street and her portfolio bleeding out in real-time.

The baseball diamond outside her office window was empty, the chalk lines faded from yesterday's corporate tournament. She remembered how her father had taught her to keep her eye on the ball, how he'd said the market was just baseball with money instead of runs. He'd died during the last bull run, and she'd buried him between client calls.

Her phone buzzed. David again: "I saw your portfolio. Call me."

She'd met him at a trading conference, both of them drunk on champagne and the heady certainty that markets only went up. They'd spent three months together, talking technical indicators over expensive dinners. Then came the correction, and he'd retreated to his bull position in crypto while she doubled down on traditional equities.

The screen flashed green—finally. A dead cat bounce, but she'd take it.

"Bear markets last longer than you think," she typed, then deleted. She deleted his texts too, each one a little death.

Outside, a group of kids picked up baseball bats, their laughter drifting through the glass. One of them held an iPhone up to capture the moment. Margot watched, remembering how David had photographed her during that brief golden autumn when everything was going up, up, up. The photos were still in her cloud—proof that she'd once been happy, once been loved.

The bulls were charging again, the indexes rallying like they'd never fallen. Her phone rang—David, calling this time. She let it go to voicemail, watching the kids play baseball through the glass, remembering what her father had said about losing games but winning seasons.

She'd survive this bear market. She always did. But some losses didn't show up on quarterly reports.