Gemotions

The new owner, a young woman with a perfectly sculpted face and impeccably styled hair, kept sighing and checking her watch. Every gesture and look suggested impatience and disgust. For weeks, David had refused to pack. He had refused to speak to the movers. He had refused to even acknowledge the impending doom.

He’d spent the last few hours sitting on the porch swing, listening to the rhythmic creak of the chains, the only sound that seemed to penetrate the oppressive silence. The approaching machinery was making an awful racket.

He thought of his mother, her ghost in every room. He felt her loss anew as the first of the demolition crew stepped into the yard, a man wielding a clipboard. David tightened his grip on the porch swing's chains.

He was staying put.