Vitamins for the Soul

The last time Elias saw his brother alive, they were playing padel at that overpriced club downtown. Marcus was winning, as always, sweat dripping down his temples while he laughed about some vitamin deficiency he'd diagnosed himself with. "Take this," he'd said, tossing a bottle of supplements at Elias after the match. "You look like you're swimming through mud lately.

Now, standing at Marcus's gravesite three months later, the vitamins sat heavy in Elias's pocket. He fingered the bottle—what was left of them, anyway—while staring at the pyramid-shaped stone the family had chosen. Some ancient Egyptian nonsense about eternal life. Marcus would have hated it. He would've made some joke about how he always wanted to be pharaoh, just without the commitment.

Their father had built his business like a pyramid scheme that actually worked—each level supporting the ones above, until he sat at the top with his whiskey and his silence. Marcus had climbed it effortlessly, while Elias had never even wanted to start. He'd chosen teaching, baseball games in the park with neighborhood kids, the smell of cut grass and infield dust.

"You're wasting your potential," Marcus had told him that day at the padel court. They'd grabbed dinner afterward, something rare between them. "Dad's not getting younger. The company needs someone who gives a damn."

Elias had swirled his beer, avoiding his brother's eyes. "I give a damn about things that matter."

The fight had ended badly—words thrown like fastballs, no gloves. Three weeks later, Marcus was dead behind the wheel of his Beamer, blood alcohol content twice the legal limit. The vitamin bottle in Elias's pocket was suddenly weightless.

He knelt by the pyramid stone, digging a small hole with his fingers. The ground was still cold from winter, damp and resistant. Like Marcus, he thought, then felt guilty for it. He buried the vitamins—all those promises of health, of fixing what was broken beneath the surface.

"Baseball," he whispered, standing and brushing dirt from his knees. "We should've played baseball."

But that was the thing about pyramids. By the time you reached the top, there was nowhere left to climb. And by the time you understood the shape they'd built you into, you were already made of stone.