Gemotions

The letter arrived on a Tuesday, announcing the inevitable. The house, her childhood home, would be razed to make way for a parking lot. A parking lot! She’d immediately drafted a reply, a furious screed filled with every grievance she'd harbored since childhood. It would stay unsent.

Now, she stood on the curb, watching the workers haul away the last vestiges of her past. They were tearing the whole place down. All of it.

She dug her nails into her palms, a small, barely perceptible act of self-punishment. The world kept moving, kept building, kept destroying. They hadn't even bothered to ask her opinion. The thought sent a fresh wave of heat through her.