Supplements to a Life

Marcus stood in his garage at 2 AM, gripping a bottle of prenatal vitamins like it might explode. His wife had left three months ago—carried her essential oils and yoga mat to her sister's place in Santa Fe—leaving behind these reminders of what they'd tried and failed to create for five years. The expiration date read 2028. A cruel optimism.

He popped the cap and swallowed three dry, thinking about his father, who'd pitched three innings for the Double-A affiliate before tearing his rotator cuff. The old man still watched every baseball game with religious intensity, quoting batting averages like scripture. "You swing and miss enough times, boy, they still let you keep playing," he'd say, usually after a bourbon.

Now Marcus was forty-three, Regional Director for NutriLife Supplements, and completely full of shit. The vitamin D market was saturated. Their collagen peptides were overpriced powder. The whole business model depended on convincing healthy people they were secretly deficient. He'd been selling imaginary deficiencies for fifteen years, and somewhere along the way, he'd started believing his own pitch.

His phone buzzed—Elena, probably. Or maybe corporate with another quarterly target. He didn't check.

Outside, a neighbor's security light caught something moving in the darkness. Marcus stepped onto his porch, and there it was—a massive bull, loose from the ranch development down the road, standing in his suburban front yard like some biblical omen. The thing chewed his carefully curated hydrangeas with deliberate indifference.

The bull raised its head and stared at him. Eyes like wet stones. No malice, just existence. Marcus felt suddenly, violently ridiculous—standing here in his boxer shorts, swallowing prenatal vitamins, while this creature reduced his property value one mouthful at a time.

He laughed. The sound surprised him. He'd forgotten what genuine amusement felt like.

"You know what?" he said to the bull. "Eat the whole damn yard."

He went inside, packed a bag, and left a note for Elena—not an apology, but an admission. Then he drove toward Santa Fe, windows down, singing some terrible baseball anthem his father used to play, feeling something in his chest loosen and expand, not quite joy, but close enough.