Gemotions

The car keys slipped from his trembling fingers, clattering onto the asphalt. He stared at the vacant space, the sun glinting off the exposed earth where the willow had stood. His head throbbed, a dull, persistent ache that echoed the emptiness he felt.

He pictured the slender sapling he had planted, a tiny thing that barely reached his knee. He'd nursed it through droughts and storms, watching it grow with a silent pride. Now, there was nothing. A void.

He couldn't speak, the words stuck in his throat, choked by a wave of disbelief and mounting ire. The world tilted slightly, his stomach churning with a sudden, overwhelming nausea.