Gemotions

He'd arrived early, before the crew. He wanted one last look, to walk through the rooms in his mind. But the door was locked. He felt like an outsider, a ghost. He was thrown off.

He paced the sidewalk, counting the windows, the bricks. Each detail triggered a memory, a flash of the past. He remembered his father's workshop, the scent of sawdust, the sound of his mother humming in the kitchen.

He leaned against a lamppost, the metal cold against his back. The anticipation of loss was worse than the loss itself, he realized, but even knowing that, he felt a sudden and immense exhaustion.