Gemotions

The attic’s darkness pressed in around him. Ben, a man accustomed to the concrete realities of life, discovered an old, leather-bound scrapbook.

He flipped through the brittle pages. Photographs of smiling faces, carefully arranged, telling stories of births, graduations, and holidays. He paused at a picture of a couple. He felt a pang in his chest.

He traced the outline of a child's handprint, a tiny memento pressed onto a page. He felt the weight of history in that moment. Closing the scrapbook, he knew he couldn’t simply discard it. He thought of his own childhood.