Gemotions

The scent of dust and old wood hung in the air, a familiar perfume that normally comforted Maya. Today, though, it felt suffocating. She stood in the kitchen, the linoleum floor worn smooth by decades of footsteps, the same floor she'd learned to walk on. Her stomach felt like a knot of tangled string.

She’d been helping her brother pack up the last of their mother’s belongings. Each object was a trigger, a memory unleashed. A chipped teacup, a faded photograph, a cookbook stained with flour. She kept picking things up, putting them down, unable to commit. It was all a bit much.

"Are you okay, Maya?" her brother asked, his voice gentle. She simply shrugged, unable to articulate the swirling confusion that filled her. She wanted to scream, to run, to rewind time, but all she could do was stand there, frozen, in the heart of what had been her world.