The Last Bull Run

Marcus watched the red numbers bleed across his screens, the terminal's glow the only light in his corner office at 2 AM. The bull market that had carried him through a decade was dying, gasping its last somewhere between the Fed's latest rate hike and his own mounting insomnia.

He pressed his palms into his eyes until he saw stars. In the silence of the forty-second floor, he could almost hear the phantom sound of dog tags jingling—Buster's tags, from before the divorce, before the downtown apartment that didn't allow pets. Sometimes he'd wake up convinced he felt the weight of a golden retriever's head on his chest, the steady rhythm of a creature who loved him without conditions, without asking about his Q3 projections.

His phone buzzed. Elena.

"You still at the office?" Her voice was tinny through the speaker.

"Just finishing up."

"The cat's asking for you."

Marcus smiled despite himself. Elena's cat—a haughty Siamese named Goddess—had decided Marcus was acceptable five years ago and never revised her opinion. She didn't ask for anything. She demanded, and he complied. There was something honest about that.

"I'll be home in an hour."

"Marcus."

"What?"

"Come home now. The numbers will still be wrong tomorrow."

He looked at the screens. She was right. The red would still be red. The bull was dead, and something else was coming—something leaner, hungrier. Or maybe nothing was coming at all. Maybe that was the point.

He shut down his terminal. For the first time in fifteen years, he didn't set a market alert on his phone.

"On my way," he said.

In the taxi, watching the city blur past, Marcus realized he wasn't afraid of the bear market everyone was whispering about. He was afraid he'd forgotten how to want anything else.

Then he let himself into Elena's apartment, and Goddess wound herself around his ankles, purring like a small engine, and for a moment—just a moment—the world was simple again.