Gemotions

The coffee tasted like ash in Clara’s mouth. She chewed on the edge of the rejection letter, the paper starting to fray under the pressure of her teeth. The sunlight streaming through the café window felt too bright, too intrusive. She squinted, pulling her scarf tighter around her neck.

She’d spent the last year working on a fantasy epic, a world she’d built brick by painstaking brick. The feedback was politely dismissive, full of platitudes about "not the right fit." The words offered no solace, only the cold, hard realization of failure.

She wanted to scream, to shatter the delicate porcelain cup in front of her. Instead, she just sat there, staring at the swirling patterns in the coffee. Her fingers traced the rim of the cup. The world seemed distant, muted, as if viewed through a thick pane of glass.