Gemotions

Sarah slammed her gardening shears onto the grass, the metal clanging against the earth. The willow, the weeping willow she had admired for years, had surrendered. She'd been inside, baking cookies. The rain had been beating down, and the wind was howling. Now, its massive, skeletal arms lay across the garage.

A coldness swept through her, as if someone had poured ice water down her back. All that work, all that time spent nurturing the property, and this! The sheer improbability of it. The way the tree looked; a broken promise.

"No," she breathed, the word a tiny whisper lost in the sudden, echoing silence of the yard. She ran her hands through her hair, a frantic gesture of disbelief. It felt like the world had tilted on its axis.