Gemotions

The email sat in Martha’s inbox, a stark white rectangle amidst the usual clutter. “Regretfully Closing,” it blared in bold font. She blinked, rereading the subject line, as if the words themselves might magically rearrange. Her breath hitched. The screen seemed to swim. She'd been planning on picking up her usual order of the crab cakes later that week. Now… now what?

She instinctively reached for her phone, intending to text her friend Sarah, the person she always met at The Gilded Spoon, but her fingers fumbled, dropping the device onto the wooden floor. The impact made a hollow sound that echoed in the sudden silence of her apartment.

Martha knelt, retrieving her phone, and slowly, deliberately, picked up her glasses and perched them on her nose. She clicked the email again.