Gemotions

The house felt vast and silent, each room echoing with the ghosts of the past. Maya wandered through the empty halls, the weight of her grandmother's absence pressing down on her. The silence was almost unbearable. She’d been asked to go through her grandmother’s things. A task she had put off.

In a forgotten jewelry box, she found it. A letter of resignation, from a career she'd always admired. It spoke of a yearning for freedom, for a life less constrained, for the simple joys of everyday life. Maya reread the words, the familiar feeling of being adrift beginning to take shape.

She walked into the living room, the sunlight slanting through the dusty windows. She felt a profound sense of isolation, a keen awareness of the space between herself and others. She wrapped her arms around herself, as if trying to hold herself together, and closed her eyes.