Gemotions

"Easy peasy," Brenda muttered to herself as she logged in. The morning commute had been smooth, the coffee machine at her desk always worked. This routine was good. She leaned back in her chair, a comfortable, well-worn leather piece. The ergonomic design catered to her long hours, her well-honed workflow.

Her phone buzzed. A colleague's frantic text: "Meeting! Now! What's going on?" Brenda shrugged, her shoulders relaxing. "Probably the new printer installation," she texted back. The company's annual employee appreciation picnic was in two months, and she'd already started thinking about her winning entry for the baking competition.

The announcement was blunt, almost clinical, and Brenda’s carefully constructed sense of the day dissolving. She felt a tightening in her chest, a need to take a deeper breath. The room seemed to shrink, the walls closing in. She glanced at the faces around her – faces that, until this moment, she'd felt familiar with.