Gemotions

The stack of papers on Emily’s desk was as high as her mood was low. She tapped a pencil against her teeth, her jaw clenched. Her niece, Ava, a bubbly eight-year-old, had a habit of drawing the same unsettling figure in all her pictures. Emily found the images of it in her desk. She tried to tell her sister, but she just brushed it off as "creative imagination."

Emily rolled her chair back, the movement abrupt and forceful. She looked up at the ceiling. She got up, and began pacing the floor. She needed to get away from it, for a moment. This was the only way she knew how to cope.

Her phone buzzed, a new email notification. She glanced at the screen, saw a new picture in the drawings. She wanted to throw her phone across the room.