The Layoff Pool

The betting pool was pinned to the breakroom wall like a death warrant. Names written in sharpie, dollar amounts tucked beside them like secrets. We were guessing who would survive the merger, gambling with each other's livelihoods while the coffee grew cold.

I'd put fifty on Sarah from accounting. She had three kids and a mortgage she couldn't bear alone. Not that any of us could bear much these days. The weight of uncertainty sat in our chests like indigestion.

Then I saw the bear.

It was standing by the edge of the outdoor pool behind our office building — a massive grizzly, its fur matted with autumn leaves. I was on my third cigarette of the hour, running on caffeine and dread, watching it wade into the water. The pool had been closed for years, the water green and stagnant.

The bear submerged itself completely, then emerged shaking water from its coat like a dog. It looked at me with eyes that held more recognition than they should have.

"You're running out of time," the bear seemed to say, though of course bears don't speak. But in that moment, I understood.

I'd been running for months — running from the conversation with my wife about her mother's dementia, running from the mirror showing my father's face growing back on mine, running from the fact that I'd spent twenty years building a life I didn't want.

The bear climbed out of the pool and walked toward me. I didn't move. I stood my ground, heart hammering, and realized that for the first time in years, I wasn't running.

It passed within feet of me, smelled of cedar and wet fur and something ancient. It carried something in its jaws — something yellow and white. A child's pool float, bitten and leaking.

The bear paused, dropped the ruined toy at my feet, and looked back at the green water.

Some things, it seemed, couldn't be saved.

Back inside, I took the betting pool down from the wall. Sarah walked in, her phone showing another missed payment. I put fifty dollars back in her hand.

"Call your mother," I told my wife that night. "I'll come visit too."

I didn't have a job anymore. But I wasn't running anymore either.