Gemotions

The bus rattled and swayed, a metallic cage that trapped her with her thoughts. The city blurred past the rain-streaked windows, a symphony of gray and black. She needed to escape, even for a moment.

She pulled out the library book she’d borrowed that morning, a biography of a long-dead artist. The pages felt smooth and cool beneath her fingertips. She scanned the text, but her mind kept drifting.

A slip of paper slid out. It was a photograph, a faded image of a woman standing in a garden, her face turned away from the camera. On the back, a single word was written in elegant script: “Forgotten.” The world seemed to tilt on its axis.