Gemotions

He stood motionless, his gaze fixed on the vacant space. His hands, usually animated, hung limp at his sides. The sun, previously a welcome warmth on his face, now felt oppressive. The air seemed thick, heavy with an unspoken accusation. He’d driven all the way back to his childhood home, a journey made thousands of times. But this… this was new.

His heart thumped a frantic rhythm. He remembered the tree’s gnarled branches reaching towards the sky, offering shade from the summer heat. His grandmother used to sit beneath it, reading, a picture he’d carried in his mind's eye for years. Now, only a small, broken mound of sawdust. He ran a hand through his hair, a gesture he’d repeated countless times during moments of stress, as though he could physically erase the reality of what he was seeing.