They gathered in the blue light of their screens like penitents before some electric altar. Boys mostly. Men who had not yet become men. They spoke of diamond hands and holding the line and they spoke of it the way their fathers’ fathers had spoken of God.

He watched the charts all night. The green candles rising. The red ones falling like blood down a drain. In the chat rooms they called each other brother and king and they meant it. They meant it the way the lonely always mean it.

What do you believe in, his mother asked him once.

The future, he said.

She looked at him a long time. She had lines in her face that told of all the futures that had not come to pass.

Outside the cars went by on the wet street and the rain came down and somewhere a siren and somewhere a dog barking at nothing. He refreshed the page. He refreshed it again. The number climbed and fell and climbed. It meant something. It had to mean something.

In the forums they posted their losses like wounds. Six figures. Seven. They posted them and the others gathered round and said hold brother. Said we are all going to make it. Said this is the way.

And perhaps it was a kind of church. Perhaps all churches are just places where the frightened gather to tell each other they are not afraid.

He bought more. He held. The night was long and the screen was bright and in its glow his face looked like something not yet born or something already dead and there was no telling which.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​