The Drowning Man's Pool

The blue water of the hotel pool rippled like silk, untouched except for the solitary woman doing laps at the far end. Mark sat in a lounge chair, his iPhone burning against his palm, the market app flashing red and green numbers that meant everything and nothing.

"Bull run ending," the message from his colleague read. "Bear incoming. You in the betting pool?"

Mark had put five grand on the bull continuing. Five grand he'd told Sarah was for their anniversary trip to Hawaii, not that she'd know—she'd left him two months ago, taking the dog and the better years of his thirties.

The water looked inviting. He remembered the pool at his childhood home, how he'd float for hours as a boy, weightless and anonymous. Now he was forty-three, and the only weightlessness he knew was the hollow feeling in his gut when positions moved against him.

His iPhone buzzed again. A notification from the dating app he'd reluctantly installed. "You have a new match." He ignored it. What was the point? He'd already met the love of his life, and apparently, she'd been pretending for eight years.

"Market turning," another message flashed. "Betting pool closes in five."

Mark stood up. The pool water lapped against the tiles, gentle and indifferent. He could walk away from the bet. He could lose the money but keep something else—dignity, perhaps. The ability to tell himself he wasn't the kind of man who needed the rush, who needed to prove something with numbers on a screen.

Instead, he typed: "Double down on bull."

The woman doing laps reached the end of the pool, pulled herself out of the water, and wrapped herself in a towel. She didn't look at him. She probably had a life, real problems, real love. Mark sat back down and watched his screen, waiting to feel something, anything at all.

The water rippled again, and for a moment, he almost remembered how to swim.