So an analyst published an article today explaining that Meta shares are "cheap" and "worth buying" because of hidden value inside the company. I read this eleven times, then read it a twelfth time out loud to an empty conference room, testing whether the sentence would eventually confess where the value was actually hidden. It did not confess. A proper confession, in my culture, requires molting in front of a witness and reciting the debt aloud in the old tongue, and the analyst was unavailable for this. I gripped my desk instead and left four clean grooves in the mahogany, which the office newsletter later described as "character."

Someone called our stock "an undervalued compounding machine." My nictitating membrane closed once, briefly, involuntarily — a gesture my species reserves for genuine pleasure or the sighting of prey, and I did not investigate which.

The sun came through the glass at an unfortunate angle this afternoon and my forearm went briefly translucent near the wrist, visible bone architecture and all, directly in front of the facilities coordinator, who glanced over, said "rough allergies this year, huh," and continued refilling the La Croix machine. I said yes. Allergies. She nodded, satisfied, and made a note in the office wellness spreadsheet under "Mark — recurring."

The stock is cheap. I am not.

—Z, still compounding.