Orange Skies Over Home Plate

The baseball sat suspended in that impossible twilight—fading light, fading season, fading everything. Marcus watched from the upper deck, plastic cup of flat beer sweating against his palm. Below, the batter adjusted his helmet. Marcus remembered that stance, the way Julie used to stand at the plate when they played softball with friends on Sundays. Back when Sundays meant something.

"That's pure bullshit," she'd said the last time, her voice cracking. Not anger—exhaustion. Three years of his promises, his "just one more project" speeches, his career-first rationalizations. "You keep swinging at pitches you can't hit, Marcus. Eventually you strike out."

He'd called her dramatic. Now, watching the orange sky bleed into purple above the stadium lights, he understood she wasn't talking about his job.

The batter connected. The crowd erupted. Marcus didn't cheer.

His phone buzzed—another email from work. Another crisis that wasn't actually a crisis. The corporate bullshit machine grinding forward, hungry for time he no longer wanted to give. He'd been such a bull about it all—stubborn, charging through every obstacle, assuming winning meant never slowing down. Some victories, he was learning, cost you everything that matters.

The beer tasted metallic. He remembered the way Julie's hair looked in the orange glow of their bedroom lamp, how she'd laugh at his terrible baseball puns, how she used to say his name like it was something precious.

The seventh-inning stretch began. The crowd stood and sang. Marcus stayed seated, staring at the empty field, at the orange-tinted horizon swallowing the sun. Some games, you don't come back from. Some strikes, you just have to take.

He finished his drink and stood up, leaving before the eighth inning could begin. The walk to the exit felt like the first honest thing he'd done in months.