Gemotions

The editor’s notes, scrawled across the margins of the manuscript, felt like a personal attack. He glared at them, the pen marks resembling angry scratches. The air in his cramped office felt thick with unspoken resentment.

He pushed his chair back from the desk, the squeak a jarring sound in the silence. He considered what they had to say. Were they even real writers, or just some people playing on some giant playground? He got up and walked over to the window, the city sprawling below, indifferent to his woes.

He picked up a phone and dialed. "Cancel it," he said, his voice clipped and cold. The "it" was his subscription to the publication that had scorned his work.