Gemotions

The afternoon sun cast long shadows across the empty gallery space, highlighting the dust motes dancing in the air. Ezra, the artist, sat hunched in a chair, his shoulders slumped. The opening night had been a disaster, the critics dismissing his work with dismissive phrases. He felt as if the air had been sucked from the room.

He aimlessly scrolled through Instagram when he saw a post from a tattoo artist. He knew, before clicking, that it was going to be bad news. There it was: his "Guardian Angel" rendered on someone’s back. The tattoo artist was not up to par. The wings were misshapen, the halo looked wrong.

A wave of something akin to despair crashed over him. His meticulous work, the years of practice, all diminished to a cheap copy. He closed his eyes, his head throbbing. He felt as if the world was pressing down on him.