Gemotions

The audacity of it. He’d barely spoken to Carol in years, and now she wanted a fence. It was all a pretense, he knew, a calculated move to further her own social climbing ambitions. He pictured her, with her perfectly coiffed hair and her insincere smiles, hosting garden parties behind their new barrier, excluding him.

The construction crew arrived early, a noisy, disruptive bunch. The rhythmic pounding of the nails, the whine of the saw, each sound a deliberate affront.

He found himself pacing his living room, the Persian rug feeling rough beneath his feet. The coffee he made tasted acrid. He stared out the window, watching the fence go up, brick by brick. Every time he felt a sharp pain in his chest, making it hard to breathe.