A Nightmare on Destitution Street

It’s Halloween, l thought we could have a little scary story today…Booo👻

Mark stared into the glowing screen, watching the blood drain from his reflection. Twenty-three years feeding the warehouse beast, and the numbers whispered their cruel truth: $47,000. A ghost of what might have been.

The employer match had waited, an unopened door. But there were other hungers, other demons whispering of pleasures that couldn’t wait, of tomorrows that never arrived.

“Should’ve saved more,” he breathed into the frigid air, where only walls heard his confession. But rent had climbed like ivy over a grave, and he’d always had a taste for life’s sweeter poisons.

At sixty-two, something snapped within. He screamed at his manager, raised that finger, and walked. The money was his, wasn’t it? He filed early, snatched Social Security with trembling hands, accepted the 30% reduction like a pact signed in blood. Forever. He never thought about it being forever reduced.

The advisor’s voice wailed through his memory: *”Never withdraw more than 4%” But Mark needed more. Needed to keep the music playing. He pulled 7%, watched his nest egg wither, a body drained by some undead vampire, its wants never satisfied..

By seventy, the 401k had flatlined in the rigor mortis of early death. Zero. Nothing left but the ghost of Social Security, thin as gruel, cold as rain.

Now he shuffles through the food bank line. Surrounded by others wearing a hollowed look, eyes that have seen the monster’s face. Retirement wasn’t supposed to taste like this, like blood, metallic and bitter. The golden dream had curdled into dread and fear: this queue, this wait, this slow-motion haunting.

Thirty more years, perhaps. Time stretches ahead like an endless horror.

On Halloween night, Mark sits on his step handing out treats. The children’s costumes shimmer with childhood magic, elves and goblins and things that go bump. He smiles. He waves. But inside, he knows the shape of real fear, he knows the terror…It isn’t the childhood monster under the bed.

It’s outliving your mortal wealth. Watching numbers drain away while your heart keeps beating, keeps insisting you continue to live. The cruelest curse, not death, but life without the means to live it. He is the ghost at his own feast, the warning in the mirror, the cautionary tale, self-damned and still breathing…I should have saved more.

The four horsemen of the retirement apocalypse move on , their job well done with Mark. Another victim awaits…you may know their names but let me tell you, forewarned is forearmed.

No employer match, undersaving, early filing, high withdrawal…You’ve been warned. The misery awaits, a nightmare on destitution street calls, will it be your name?