By early 2007 the unease had a shape the kind that hides behind good news and record bonuses everyone smiling too wide talking too fast as if loudness could drown the whisper of something cracking beneath us the data still looked perfect graphs smooth lines rising steady but I’d learned long ago that calm seas usually mean a storm is waiting

Leon came into my office one morning his grin too bright said he’d leveraged our portfolio double exposure double return I asked with whose approval he said yours in spirit I told him to cut it back he said relax this is the modern market we don’t lose anymore I wanted to yell but instead I laughed because I remembered being him once drunk on certainty

The clients were the same hungry and blind one asked me if he could borrow against his house to buy more mortgage bonds said it was a sure thing I told him sure things don’t exist he said you sound like a pessimist I said maybe that’s experience he didn’t care people rarely do until it’s too late

By summer I started waking up at 3 a.m. checking futures screens glowing cold blue in the dark the numbers still strong but too strong unreal even the air in the office felt thinner like before a thunderstorm everyone ignoring the static pretending not to smell the rain

Julia sent an email that July said she’d seen headlines about rising defaults asked if I was worried I wrote back no just busy but the truth was I hadn’t stopped worrying for months I thought about visiting her sometimes about walking away for real this time but I never booked the flight work always louder than conscience

Then August came and everything started breaking at once funds freezing liquidity vanishing words like contagion and collapse whispering through the market like smoke I watched our positions tremble on the screens tried to act calm Leon pacing behind me muttering this can’t be real but it was

One Friday the CFO called emergency meeting said we were fine said exposure limited said the usual lies his voice shaking when he said it I’d heard that tone before in eighty seven in ninety seven in every cycle the same denial dressed new

That weekend I didn’t leave my apartment watched the news on loop banks folding talking heads arguing about blame the same story retold for a new generation Monday morning I walked into the office and saw fear again real fear the kind you can smell phones ringing no one answering the system locking up trade confirmations delayed the illusion of control evaporating

Leon lost half our book in three hours he stood there staring at the screen pale like a child realizing monsters are real I told him to step away he didn’t move just kept whispering this isn’t supposed to happen I said it never is

By September the collapse had names big ones banks older than empires gone in a week I watched executives cry on television politicians swear salvation while the market burned behind them I should have felt vindicated instead I felt hollow like a soldier who survived a war he no longer believed in

Julia called again said maybe now you’ll finally walk away I said maybe but even as I said it I knew I wouldn’t I was too tied to the rhythm the noise the cruel heartbeat of the market that had defined my life for three decades

The government stepped in money printed like forgiveness bailouts whispered like prayers the system too big to fail they said and maybe they were right maybe we were all too entangled to collapse completely maybe that was the worst part that we’d built something that could never die no matter how rotten it became

Leon quit after that disappeared said he was done said he’d had enough I envied him a little he was young enough to start over I wasn’t sure I knew how anymore I stayed because staying was the only thing I understood

When the dust settled I walked home through streets that felt familiar and foreign at once shops closed faces grim the air heavy with exhaustion the city looked older and so did I every reflection another ghost from another crash

At home I poured a drink stood by the window watching the lights flicker on the river and thought about all the times I’d told myself I’d stop the promises made and broken the lessons unlearned I whispered out loud maybe this time I mean it but even my voice didn’t believe me

Because when you live long enough in chaos order starts to feel unnatural and peace becomes the scariest risk of all