The Market Doesn't Care

Mara stared at the terminal, numbers bleeding together in the harsh fluorescent light of the trading floor. Three A.M. The fourth consecutive night she'd found herself here, fueled by stale coffee and a gnawing anxiety she couldn't quite name.

"Market's showing zombie behavior," Chen muttered from the next desk, not looking up from his screens. His skin had taken on that peculiar gray pallor of someone who hadn't seen sunlight in weeks. They all had, really.

She knew what he meant—sectors that should have died years ago, kept shambling forward on cheap capital and desperate hope. Tech startups with no revenue. Retail chains that should have been euthanized in 2019. The entire economy felt like it was running on fumes and borrowed time.

"bull market's been dead for months," she said, the words tasting like ash. "Nobody wants to be the one to call it."

Her phone buzzed. David again. Three missed calls, two texts asking where she was. She'd told him she was working late. Again. The truth was worse—she'd stopped going home because home meant facing the life they'd built together, the mortgage, the future plans that suddenly felt like a prison of other people's expectations. Better to exist in this liminal space, this fluorescent purgatory where the only thing that mattered was the next quarter, the next bonus, the next hit of dopamine when a position finally paid off.

"You should go home," Chen said, finally glancing over. His eyes were hollow. "David's waiting."

"In a minute."

She wasn't running from David, exactly. She was running from the version of herself who thought any of this mattered. The version who believed that if she just worked hard enough, saved enough, optimized everything perfectly, she'd finally feel something other than this constant, low-grade dread.

The zombie sectors on her screen flashed red. She watched, detached, as her portfolio dipped. Something inside her stirred—a ghost of the ambition that had driven her here, a decade ago. But then it faded, replaced by the familiar numbness.

She could stay here all night, watching money she'd never truly need move in ways she couldn't control. Or she could pack up her things, walk out into the predawn dark, and finally go home to a man who still loved her, even though she'd forgotten how to love herself.

The market would be here tomorrow. It always was.

Mara stood up, grabbed her coat. "I'm heading out."

Chen nodded, already turning back to his screens. "Smart. The dead should stay buried."