Gemotions

The morning sun, usually a welcome guest, felt like a spotlight trained directly on Arthur’s face. He swatted at the air, attempting to shoo away the encroaching brightness. Coffee, his usual salvation, tasted like burnt motor oil. Then he saw it: a biography, "The Accidental Life of Arthur Penhaligon," gleaming on his doorstep. His jaw tightened. He'd never authorized any such thing.

He snatched the book, his knuckles white. The glossy cover, with a smiling photo of himself taken during a time he barely recalled, filled him with a low, simmering resentment. He'd had a perfectly boring day planned, and now this…this intrusion. He flipped through the pages, a vein pulsing in his temple. The book, it turned out, detailed his life in excruciating, and entirely fabricated, detail.

He threw the book across the room, the flimsy pages fluttering like wounded birds. He felt a throbbing ache behind his eyes and the sudden, overwhelming urge to find the author and… well, he didn’t know what he wanted to do, exactly, but it wouldn't be pleasant.