Gemotions

He watched his brother, David, beaming as he spoke about his upcoming baptism into the Church of Scientology. The fluorescent lights of the kitchen seemed to intensify the rigid set of his jaw. Thomas found himself unable to articulate the churning dread that had taken residence in his stomach.

The world seemed to shrink around him. The possibilities he envisioned for his own life, once expansive, were now compressed into a tight box. He picked at the corner of a napkin, a nervous habit he hadn't indulged in years.

He kept replaying David’s words in his mind, the fervent conviction in his voice. He felt a phantom tightening in his throat, making it difficult to breathe, a physical manifestation of his internal confinement. He felt a desperate urge to run, to escape the suffocating atmosphere of the conversion.