Gemotions

The scent of lavender, normally soothing, now felt cloying. Clara watched her father pack the antique writing desk, her grandmother's, into a crate. He hummed a jaunty tune, oblivious, or perhaps pretending to be. She felt a tremor in her hands.

She remembered the countless hours she had spent at that desk as a child, practicing her penmanship, pretending to be a great author. The desk held the ghost of her grandmother's presence. Its polished surface, its delicate drawers - all felt like lost memories.

She couldn't speak, the words caught in her throat. Her father's cheerfulness grated on her. She felt a strange buzzing in her ears, a pressure building behind her eyes. He was selling a piece of her.

She had to get out. She stumbled from the room, needing to breathe, to escape the suffocating atmosphere. The world seemed to tilt as she reached the front door.