Gemotions

The email sat in Eleanor's inbox, radiating a cold, unwelcome light. Professor Davies, her advisor, was resigning. Her stomach churned, a low, persistent thrumming. She reread the short message, the words blurring slightly. Her fingers tightened around her phone, knuckles whitening. She felt a sudden, inexplicable urge to scrub the sink in her cramped apartment, to bleach the world clean of this piece of news.

She slammed her laptop shut, the metallic clack echoing in the sudden quiet. The air in her small study felt thick, difficult to breathe. Outside, the wind howled, rattling the windowpanes. A profound sense of displacement washed over her, like being adrift on a vast, unforgiving ocean.