Gemotions

The coffee tasted like ash in his mouth. Michael hadn’t felt truly awake in weeks. He spent his days in a fog, the world appearing to him in shades of gray. He'd been aimlessly meandering through a flea market, the cacophony of voices and smells usually overwhelming, but today, they were just another layer of the general unease that clung to him. He gravitated towards a table piled high with old books.

A particularly battered edition of Dickens caught his eye. As he flipped through the pages, a small, carefully drawn sketch of a bird fluttered out, followed by a letter. The paper was thin, almost translucent, and the script was tiny, almost microscopic. "Sometimes, the smallest things… the way the light catches… are the only reasons…" the letter whispered, and for a moment, the world didn't feel so heavy.