Gemotions

The living room, usually bathed in sunlight, felt shadowed and cold. Michael, perched on a footstool, surveyed the boxes his mother had left behind. He felt a deep-seated resistance to the whole process.

He had come to find his birth certificate. The whole thing was just a nuisance, a pointless exercise in nostalgia. He wanted to get this over with as quickly as possible.

He was not going to be sidetracked by sentimental nonsense.

He lifted the lid of the box marked "Michael's Milestones." He would, however, glance inside and be done with it. The memory, or this would never end.