Gemotions

The delivery person handed me a small, square package addressed to "Mr. Thomas Ainsworth." I felt a dull ache in my chest. The previous owner had been a man, I remembered, older.

I opened it and found a framed painting. A landscape: rolling hills, a winding road, a setting sun. The colors were muted, the brushstrokes delicate. I stared at it, a strange sense of yearning washing over me.

I tried to imagine Thomas, the man who’d once called this house his home, hanging this painting on his wall, looking at it every day. I felt a sense of longing I had never felt before. I hung the painting on my wall, staring at the sunset, feeling drawn to the memory of a life that was not mine.