Gemotions

The rusted gate screeched in protest as Elias pushed it open, the sound echoing in the deserted park. He hadn't been back in years, not since he’d left for the city. Back then, it had felt like an escape, a necessary severing. Now, standing here, the weight of the years, of the choices made and not made, settled heavily on his shoulders.

The spot was gone. Where a young sapling had once stood, a proud testament to youthful hope, was now just a gaping, muddy scar in the earth. The neat little wooden fence he’d built around it as a child, painstakingly crafted, was vanished. His gut twisted. He kicked at a loose stone, sending it skittering across the dry grass.

He pulled his phone out, scrolling through old photos. There it was, the tiny tree, barely taller than him, surrounded by the makeshift fence, a grinning ten-year-old Elias standing proudly beside it. He deleted the photo, the gesture feeling somehow fitting.