Vitamin Deficient

The bull market had been raging for three years when Elena stopped feeling anything at all. She'd stare at the numbers scrolling across her screens—green arrows climbing ever upward—and feel nothing but a dull ache behind her eyes. Her portfolio swelled, her bonus checks grew fatter, but her life seemed to shrink with each deposit.

She began taking vitamin D supplements after her doctor pointed out her levels were practically non-existent. 'You work indoors, you never see sunlight,' he'd said, but Elena knew it wasn't just that. She'd become something else entirely—something hollowed out and reanimated, a corporate zombie moving through her days on autopilot.

The gym became her only sanctuary. She'd arrive at 11 PM, when the fitness center was empty, and swim lap after lap until her muscles burned and her vision blurred. There was something about being submerged, about the rhythmic drag through water, that briefly silenced the constant hum of her phone, her email, her existence.

One Tuesday, she swam until her arms gave out, and she found herself clinging to the edge of the pool, gasping. A maintenance worker found her there at midnight—a stranger in a wet suit, weeping into the chlorinated water.

'I don't know what I'm doing,' she told him, and it was the first honest thing she'd said in years.

The next morning, she walked into her corner office and packed her things. The bull market could continue without her. Elena had finally remembered what it felt like to be alive.