The Bull Market of Regret

Marcus stood before the bathroom mirror at 4:30 AM, staring at the amber prescription bottle. The vitamin D supplement his doctor insisted upon—his body's desperate plea for sunlight he never saw. At forty-seven, with a corner office and a six-figure salary, he'd become a pale approximation of himself.

The bull market had carried him for fifteen years. Each promotion, each bonus, each congratulatory email from corporate had felt like ascent. Now, with rumors of layoffs circulating the trading floor, the bull was finally faltering. Marcus realized he'd been running on fumes for a decade.

His wife had left six months ago. "You're married to your portfolio, not to me," she'd said, packing her designer clothes into suitcases he'd bought with dividends he'd never had time to enjoy. The silence in their Tribeca apartment had been absolute since then.

Marcus laced his running shoes—custom fitted, absurdly expensive, worn twice. He needed this. Needed to feel his heart hammering for something other than quarterly projections.

The streets were empty at this hour. He ran past doormen who nodded with practiced indifference, past window displays showcasing futures he couldn't afford to dream about. His lungs burned, his legs screamed. He kept running.

Then he saw it.

A cat sat on a brownstone stoop, skeletal and magnificent, watching him with ancient eyes. Not a stray—this creature belonged to someone, or to no one, or perhaps owned itself completely. It didn't run from him. It didn't approach. It simply witnessed his desperate flight through streets that had forgotten how to be home.

Marcus stopped, bent double, gasping. The cat blinked slowly.

He'd spent decades running toward something he couldn't name. Now the bull was dead, and there was nowhere left to run.

The cat stretched, yawning with elaborate indifference, and slipped through a basement window.

Marcus straightened up. For the first time in years, he didn't check his watch. He stood still in the gathering dawn, feeling something unfamiliar begin to rise in his chest—something like hope, or perhaps the courage to finally live a life that couldn't be quantified on a spreadsheet.