Orange Warning

Marcus stared at the orange envelope on his desk. It had arrived with the morning mail—his divorce papers, finally, after eighteen months of negotiations that had drained his savings and his soul. The color seemed to mock him. Orange was supposed to be warm, vibrant. Instead, it felt like a warning.

"You're being a bull about this, Marcus," Elena had told him during their last conversation. "Sometimes you just charge ahead without seeing who you're trampling."

She wasn't wrong. He'd charged through their marriage the same way he charged through the commodities market—head down, full speed, consequences be damned. Now he was forty-five, alone, and nursing an ulcer that his doctor insisted required vitamin supplements and stress reduction.

The cat—Elena's cat, technically, though she'd left him behind—jumped onto Marcus's desk and knocked over a bottle of orange pills. They scattered across his trading terminal like rejected advice. Barnaby purred, oblivious to the irony.

"You're the only one who stuck around," Marcus muttered, scratching behind the cat's ears. "Pathetic, isn't it?"

His phone buzzed. A market alert: cattle futures were surging. A literal bull market. Marcus had shorted the position two days ago, betting on a downturn. If he held, he could lose everything. If he sold now, he'd take a hit but survive.

The same dilemma that had defined his marriage. Cut losses or double down?

He watched the numbers climb. This was what he did—rode the adrenaline, made the split-second decisions that other people agonized over. It was why Elena had fallen for him in the first place. And why she'd eventually left.

Marcus reached for his mouse. His hand trembled. The orange envelope sat next to his keyboard, bright as a traffic light. Stop. Yield. Proceed with caution.

Barnaby meowed, then nudged the envelope onto the floor.

Marcus looked at the cat. Looked at the screen. Looked at the empty space where the envelope had been.

"You know what?" he said. "Fuck it."

He hit sell. Took the loss. Closed his terminal.

Later, he'd wonder if it was the vitamins finally kicking in, or just the first clear thought he'd had in years. But for now, Marcus scooped up the cat and walked out of his office, leaving the orange pills scattered across a desk that suddenly seemed too small for a life that needed to start over.