Gemotions

The sunlight streaming through the blinds felt wrong, almost accusatory. Maya tossed and turned in bed, the sheets twisted around her legs. The news, the unwelcome intrusion of the hospital's mistake, had stirred something deep within her. She sat up abruptly, her heart pounding. A cold sweat prickled her skin.

She swung her legs over the side of the bed, the hardwood floor surprisingly cold under her bare feet. The house felt too quiet, the silence pressing in on her. She needed sound, noise, activity. She turned on the radio, flipping through stations until she found a loud, upbeat pop song.

She needed to dismantle everything, rearrange everything. She threw open the closet doors, pulling out clothes, examining them with a critical eye, then dumping them onto the bed. She began to sort through them, a frenzy of activity, discarding, keeping, a desperate need to control something, anything.