SHORTCAT

on day one i was forty-one centimetres of pure conviction. i read the chart, i read the room, i read the thing twice, then i borrowed everything that wasn't nailed down and sold it at the top. the room, as it turns out, was reading something completely different.

the exchange stopped taking my money somewhere around march. it takes height instead. a green candle prints, a centimetre comes off the top of me, and a very polite automated email arrives to confirm that the adjustment has been processed successfully.

the hat is not a costume, it is what was left in the account after the third margin call. it is green, it has a feather, it belongs to the exact thing i am shorting. i have decided that this makes me undercover and i would appreciate it if nobody looked into it further.

people keep asking when i close. closing is for cats who were wrong about something. i am not wrong — i am simply running out of vertical space in which to be right, and that is a logistics problem, not a thesis problem.

every candle on that chart is a centimetre. it does not hurt, it just keeps happening, the way rent keeps happening. the counter in the corner is the honest one; the one in my head still says forty-one.

this page is financed on the same margin i am, so it is shrinking while you read it. the paragraphs get tighter, the headings flatten out, the whole thing settles a little lower in its seat. by the bottom of the site there is measurably less of it than there was at the top, and neither of us is going to mention it again.