The Bear at the Pyramid

The hat was too tight. Marcus adjusted it again, feeling the elastic band pinch his temples, but he didn't take it off. Tonight, everyone wore costumes at the office Halloween party, something to mask the exhaustion they'd all been carrying since the layoffs began.

He grabbed another drink from the pyramid of champagne flutes arranged near the elevator bank. The whole evening felt like a pyramid scheme of emotions: fake laughter piled on fake optimism, all built on a foundation of impending dread. His coworkers moved like zombies through the fluorescent-lit corridors—not the undead kind, but the living kind, the ones who'd forgotten how to be alive somewhere between performance reviews and mortgage payments.

"You okay?"

She appeared beside him. Elena from accounting, wearing a leopard-print something that was supposed to be sexy but mostly looked like a cry for help. Her eyes held that particular glazed look of someone who'd spent too many hours staring at spreadsheets that didn't add up.

"Just thinking about my dad," Marcus said. "He had this stuffed bear I used to love as a kid. Big brown thing with one eye missing. I'd talk to it when things got bad at home."

Elena's hand found his, brief and warm. "You haven't talked about him before."

"He died three years ago. Alzheimer's. The last time I saw him, he didn't know who I was. But he kept asking about that bear. 'Where's the bear? Where's the bear?'"

The music shifted—something upbeat and terrible. The zombies around them laughed, mouths open, drinks held high. Marcus watched Elena's profile, the way she'd stopped pretending to enjoy this charade.

"I keep thinking," he said, "maybe he wasn't asking about the bear. Maybe he was trying to tell me something. Like, be the bear. Stand between the people I love and whatever's hunting them."

Elena squeezed his hand. "Or maybe he just really loved that bear."

Marcus laughed for the first time all night. "Yeah. Probably that."

"Do you still have it? The bear?"

"No. Mom sold everything when the medical bills got bad."

"We could get you another one," she said. "A bear. For your office. Something to talk to when things get bad."

The hat slipped down over his eyes. Marcus didn't fix it. For the first time in months, something in his chest felt light. Not light like floating, but light like something heavy had finally been set down.

"I'd like that," he said. "I'd really like that."