The Market Correction
Marcus stared at the vitamin D supplement on his desk, the yellow capsule catching the harsh fluorescent light of the trading floor. His doctor had prescribed them three months ago, when he'd mentioned the persistent ache in his bones, the way his joints clicked like old floorboards when he stood from his chair. Vitamin deficiency, she'd said. Marcus knew it was something else β the slow erosion of a life spent watching numbers dance across screens while his own days accumulated like deposits in a savings account he'd never touch.
"Bull market's got legs," his colleague Sarah said, sliding into the chair beside him. She peeled an orange, the citrus scent cutting through the stale air of coffee andη΄§εΌ . She'd been leaving orange peels on his desk lately. A signal, or perhaps just carelessness.
"Bulls eventually get tired," Marcus replied. "And bears always wake up."
Sarah laughed, but her eyes didn't crinkle the way they used to. "You've been saying that since 2019. One of these days you'll be right."
Marcus watched her fingers, stained with juice, and remembered the hotel room in Chicago, the way she'd traced the scars on his back from his surfing days. That was before the IPO, before the options vested, before they both stopped being people and started being net worths. Now she was leaving for California next week β a promotion, a fresh start, whatever people called their second acts.
The terminal flashed red. A correction rippled through the tech sector. Around him, traders barked orders, fingers flying across keyboards, the collective panic of people whose livelihoods depended on predicting chaos. Marcus didn't move. He felt something inside him settle, like dust after an explosion.
"I'm not going to California," he said quietly.
Sarah stopped mid-peel. "What?"
"I'm not going anywhere. I'm done."
He stood, his knees protesting, and looked around the room. All of them β the analysts, the associates, the managing directors β they moved with the jerky, desperate energy of the walking dead, animated by something that wasn't quite life, driven by hungers that could never be satisfied. Zombies in bespoke suits.
Marcus picked up the vitamin capsule. "You know what's funny? I almost took one this morning."
He dropped it in the trash can on his way out.
"Marcus, wait β" Sarah called after him.
He didn't turn. The elevator doors opened, and he stepped through them not into the corridor but into the bright, uncertain afternoon of a Tuesday in October, finally ready to begin whatever came next.