Gemotions

The attic air hung thick and heavy, dust motes dancing in the single shaft of sunlight slicing through a crack in the boarded-up window. Elias shifted from foot to foot, the weight of the day pressing down on his shoulders. He felt leaden, like he’d been wading through molasses. He'd come to sort through boxes, a task his mother had assigned him weeks ago, but the energy to do so had vanished. He hadn’t felt this... drained... since his grandfather died.

He finally reached for a box labeled "Memories." Inside, nestled amongst yellowed tissue paper, were photos. One showed his grandmother, not the frail, softly spoken woman he knew, but a woman with a mischievous glint in her eye, arm-in-arm with a man who was most definitely *not* his grandfather. The photograph knocked the wind out of him. He sank onto an overturned crate, his gaze fixed on the laughing faces. He'd always heard his grandfather was her first and only love.