Gemotions

The gallery owner, a slick man with a permanent smile plastered on his face, gestured expansively at the canvases. My canvases. He was practically preening. My hands clenched at my sides. Each brushstroke, each careful choice, now cheapened by his blatant disregard. The audacity of it! He hadn't even called.

"Magnificent, aren't they?" he boomed, his voice grating in my ears. I wanted to scream. Instead, I took a deep breath, fighting the urge to rip one of the paintings off the wall and hurl it at him. "They're… certainly something," I managed to say, my voice tight.

He'd even retitled them, slapped some pretentious new names onto my work. My art, my life, now fodder for his profit. I walked towards the exhibit, each step a carefully controlled act of restraint. I felt a pressure building in my chest, a need to explode. I had to get out of there.