Gemotions

The sun cast long shadows across the living room as he started sorting through the keepsakes. He felt the tension coiled tight in his gut as he came across the boxes. He picked one up, the label reading “Rachel’s School Days: Kindergarten-3rd Grade.” He almost dropped it. He pushed it in frustration. She had to have been bored, but he was furious.

The contents spilled onto the floor: construction paper crafts, crayon drawings, and report cards with perfect grades. His mother’s perfection, always on display, each item a testament to her meticulous nature. He felt a sharp, cutting pain in his chest, a desperate urge to damage, to destroy.

He turned to a pile of his mother's belongings, not his own, and shoved the items to the floor in a fit. The anger boiled, a relentless heat that consumed him.