Gemotions

The coffee mug slammed against the kitchen counter, the ceramic clattering a mournful tune. Clara snatched her phone from the charger, her fingers fumbling with the screen. She scrolled through the online journal, her breath hitching with each click. There it was: her meticulously crafted piece on the migratory patterns of the Monarch butterfly, published… under the name of Bartholomew Finch. A man whose expertise, she vaguely remembered, was in plumbing.

A vein throbbed in her temple. She grabbed her keys, already mentally composing an email that would peel the paint off the publisher's walls. The front door slammed shut, echoing the feeling churning in her gut.