Gemotions

The air was thick with the smell of old hot dogs and cheap perfume. This garage sale was as depressing as all the others. He’d come out to find a particular tool, something he'd been looking for for ages, and he'd found nothing but trash. Then, he saw it. The bear.

It sat perched precariously on a pile of broken toys, its button eyes staring blankly ahead. He felt his jaw clench.

"How much for that… bear?" he asked, the words barely audible. The teenager running the sale, engrossed in a video game on his phone, barely glanced up.

"A quarter. Take it or leave it."

He paid, but as he clutched the bear, he felt a strange sense of unease. He wanted to throw it away, to destroy it, to erase the memory of its existence.