Gemotions

“Are you sure this is right?” Amelia asked the receptionist, her voice tight. The file in her hands contained a life utterly unlike her own. It belonged to a mother, a baker, someone intertwined with the fabric of their community. Her own life was a tapestry woven with solitude and quiet.

She drove home, the headlights cutting through the darkness. The familiar route, usually comforting, felt like a journey into an unknown landscape. She had been avoiding these thoughts for a long time. She felt a pressing feeling, something like the need to run.

She entered her house. The air was stale, the silence absolute. She turned on the television, the flickering images doing nothing to dispel the gloom. She spent the entire evening staring at the screen, the volume muted, the world outside her home a silent, untouchable thing.