Gemotions

The sunlight glinted off the new wooden slats. From her kitchen window, Emily observed the progress. The fence, slowly rising between the properties, felt like a wall closing in. She sipped her tea, her gaze drifting across her own yard. She remembered playing kickball with the neighborhood kids, the ball soaring over the grass, the sound of their youthful voices.

A smile touched her lips, fleeting. The air itself seemed to vibrate with a ghost of those long-ago games. The new fence, it was necessary, practical. But the memory of the open spaces, the boundless freedom of her childhood, lingered like a whisper. She looked at the picture on the refrigerator of her and her sister, smiling with such joy that it almost hurt.