The Last Pyramid

I run every morning at five, pounding the pavement until my lungs burn, trying to outrun the pyramid scheme I sold to hundreds of desperate people. My father - a bear of a man who taught me that money was the only metric that mattered - would be proud of the numbers I'd generated. He wouldn't care about the ruined lives left in the wake.

Then came Lena, sly as a fox, with eyes that seemed to see straight through my rehearsed pitches. She'd appeared at a presentation last spring, taking a seat in the back row, watching me weave dreams of financial freedom for roomfuls of strangers. I'd gone home with her that night, drunk on something I couldn't name.

We'd spent three months together, mostly in her small apartment near the tracks. She bought papaya from the market on Sundays, cutting it into thick orange slices that we'd eat in bed while she asked me questions I didn't want to answer. Not about my business - she knew that was hollow. About me.

"What would you do," she asked one morning, "if you couldn't run?"

I'd laughed then, but the question had followed me. Everything unraveled after that. The pyramid collapsed, as they always do. Investigators came. The people I'd scammed started coming forward with their stories. I did what I'd always done: I packed a bag and ran.

Now, three states away, I still run every morning. The fox I see sometimes in the predawn mist - lean, hungry, watchful - reminds me of Lena. I don't know where she is. I don't know if the investigators are closing in. I only know that I can't bear what I've done, and I can't stop running from it.

The papaya I bought today sits uneaten on the counter. Somewhere, Lena is probably waking up beside someone who doesn't have to run to recognize himself in the mirror.