Gemotions

The park was alive with laughter and the shouts of children. Michael watched his nephew, Ben, playing with an invisible friend. That friend, by some strange twist of fate, looked exactly like the creature Michael had called Zoom, his own imaginary friend, now rendered in crayon on a picnic blanket.

He remembered the day he'd decided Zoom was silly, the day he'd traded fantasy for the cold reality of peer pressure. It was a choice that had left a scar he hadn’t known he carried. He felt a deep ache in his bones, a longing for something lost.

He averted his eyes, watching the other children, afraid to meet Ben’s gaze, afraid to see the joy he once knew. He felt the weight of the past pressing down on him, a burden he could never fully escape.