Gemotions

The pile of dishes in the sink was starting to look like a small, sentient mountain. Liam knew he should deal with them. He should. But the couch beckoned, a siren song of inaction.

His dad called from the doorway, his voice flat. "Your mother wants you to clear out the guest room." Liam groaned inwardly. That room was a repository of forgotten things.

Sure enough, beneath the layers of discarded furniture and out-of-season clothing, he found it. A box labeled, in his mother’s elegant script, “School Days.” Inside, a trove of meticulously kept papers, projects, and report cards, each a testament to her past diligence. He felt a wave of exhaustion crash over him, pushing him further into the comfortable inertia that had defined his day.