Gemotions

“This… this isn’t me,” David stammered, the book shaking in his hands. He'd stumbled upon it in a used bookstore, a lurid cover promising a scandalized life. It was his. Or, at least, someone had claimed it was. He felt a deep, twisting pain as he read about the failed marriage, the lost children.

The air felt thick, heavy in his small apartment. He fumbled with the buttons of his shirt, suddenly feeling suffocated. His throat constricted. He couldn't breathe. Everything was wrong.

He felt a sudden urge to run, to escape the confines of his own existence, as though this book had trapped him there. He stumbled backward, knocking over a lamp. The sudden crash barely registered. He had to escape, to be free of this version of himself.