Gemotions

He stared out the window, the city lights blurring through his watery eyes. The enormity of it – the room, the people, the expectant silence – pressed down on him. His tie felt too tight, constricting his air passages. He took a shaky breath, the air thin and unsatisfying.

He kept running the words over and over in his head, but they morphed and twisted. It was like trying to catch smoke. He imagined his father, beaming with pride, and his own cheeks burned. He didn’t want to mess this up. He absolutely had to get it right.

His legs felt unsteady. He kept shifting his weight, trying to find a comfortable position. The speech was in his coat pocket, but the paper might as well have been a live wire. He felt the impulse to run, to disappear into the anonymity of the crowd.