Gemotions

It had taken him hours to dig it up, feeling every ache in his aging bones. The time capsule was a heavy metal coffin containing secrets he probably should have left buried. He felt the tightness in his chest increase as he opened it.

A worn copy of a book he'd loved in his youth was the first thing he saw. He had wanted to write his own stories, to create worlds and characters, but the words had never come. The blank pages of his own imagined novel loomed in his mind.

He tossed the book back in the capsule. The feeling of inadequacy lingered, a dull ache that followed him everywhere. He’d lived his life passively, a spectator, never the author.