Gemotions

The attic was stifling, the air thick with the smell of decay. John, sweat beading on his forehead, was sorting through the remnants of his grandfather's life. He’d always believed his grandfather to be a man of simple pleasures, content and happy.

He unearthed a series of photographs, a hidden cache. They showed his grandfather, younger than he had ever seen him, surrounded by an assortment of people. They were smiling, laughing, celebrating. And the man had a look in his eyes, a fire, that John had never witnessed.

He felt a deep pang, a hollow echo in his chest. His grandfather, as the photographs revealed him, was a stranger. The realization was difficult, a disquieting truth. The carefully constructed stories of his childhood seemed suddenly flimsy, threadbare.