Gemotions

He had stopped eating. The world tasted like ash, the colors of food seemed dull and lifeless. He felt adrift, lost at sea. He was barely moving when he saw her. She was a woman, her hair was unkempt, and she sat by the vending machine. She was just staring at the flickering lights.

He shuffled over, his feet dragging. "They called it… Chromatic Asynchrony," he said, the words a question.

She turned to him, her face etched with a familiar weariness. "Yeah," she replied, her voice flat. "It's a lot, isn't it?"

He swallowed hard, the simple exchange somehow easing the internal pressure a little. A small connection, a brief respite from the ceaseless ache.