Gemotions

He found the stump first, a bald, ugly thing. Then he saw the chips, the sawdust, the faint drag marks across the grass. Someone had taken it without a word, without a thought, and he felt a heat bloom in his chest. A prickling began in his fingertips. He felt the need to destroy something, anything.

"Excuse me," he said, his voice tight, to a passing groundskeeper. "What happened to the maple by the pond?" The groundskeeper merely shrugged, a careless, dismissive gesture that sent a fresh wave of heat up his neck.

He walked away, muttering under his breath, hands shoved deep in his pockets. The world felt smaller, more cramped, as if the air itself had been stolen. The damn tree was his, wasn't it? He'd planted it.