The Bull and the Empty Suit

Marcus stood on the trading floor at 2:17 AM, surrounded by screens bleeding red numbers into his retinas. He'd been at this for fourteen years, a zombie in an Italian suit, watching other people's fortunes rise and fall while his own life accumulated like dust in the corners of an empty room. The bull market had been good to him financially. He had the penthouse, the Porsche, the kind of whiskey that came with its own lineage. But somewhere around year eleven, he'd realized he was just running through someone else's dream.

Sheila had left him three months ago. "You're not here even when you're here," she'd said, packing her things into cardboard boxes that looked too brown against their white marble floors. She'd taken the orange throw pillows — a ridiculous detail to fixate on, but he missed those pillows. They were the only things in that apartment that felt like they belonged to a human being.

Tonight was different. The market was shifting. Bear territory on the horizon. His colleagues were panicking, but Marcus felt something strange swelling in his chest — hope wrapped in terror. He closed out his positions, liquidated everything, and walked out into the Chicago night.

The city was quiet. He found himself standing before the iconic Charging Bull statue, its bronze flanks gleaming under streetlights. A homeless man was curled at its base, clutching a worn teddy bear like something precious. Something in Marcus cracked open.

He started running.

Not away from something. Toward. His lungs burned. His expensive shoes slapped against pavement. He ran until he couldn't, until his heart was hammering like it actually belonged to him. When he finally stopped, bent over and gasping, the sky was turning orange — that pale, impossible color that comes just before dawn.

Marcus pulled out his phone and called the only person who might still answer. "I want to be there," he said when she picked up. "Even if it's too late. I want to be present."

Sheila was quiet for a long moment. "I'm making orange juice," she said. "Come home."

The bull market could wait. Some things mattered more.