Gemotions

The coffee mug warmed Amelia's hands, but the heat didn't seem to travel any further. She stared at the computer screen, the glow reflecting in her vacant eyes. The listing was simple: a few grainy photos of the house on Elm Street, the one with the crooked porch swing. A wave of nothing washed over her. She knew she should feel something, anything, but the information just sat there, inert.

She’d been aimlessly scrolling for hours, a habit she’d fallen into lately. The world seemed to move at a faster pace than she did. The house looked smaller than she remembered, the lawn overgrown, the paint peeling. A sharp ache throbbed in her temples. She closed the browser, the images already fading from her memory.

Later, she found herself staring at the ceiling, feeling an odd emptiness where a desire to *do* something should have been. The silence in her apartment pressed in on her, heavy and unyielding. She drifted off, the images from the listing replaying in her mind’s eye, a collection of vague, disconnected moments from her childhood.