Gemotions

The email arrived, concise and demanding. "Request to remove the boundary pine." He crumpled the paper in his hands, then carefully smoothed it out. The pine. He'd planted it, a sapling, twenty years ago. Now, it was a problem.

He leaned back in his chair, the office around him a sterile, suffocating box. The air conditioning hummed, a mechanical lullaby that did nothing to soothe the tightness in his chest. He imagined the saw biting into the wood, the scent of fresh pine mingling with the dusty air. He reread the email, each word a cold, hard stone in his gut, and found himself wanting to scream. He was going to resist.