Gemotions

"Condos," he spat the word, tasting bile. He’d come home to find the flyer plastered over his doorknob. The building, his refuge from the world, his escape from the incessant noise of his own mind, was becoming something he couldn’t understand.

He ripped it off the door, tearing it in half, then again, and again, until it was confetti. He flung the pieces into the air, watching them fall. Each small paper shard, like the pieces of his life, were now scattered.

He didn't sleep that night. He sat in his armchair, staring at the ceiling, every creak and groan of the building now a hostile, unfamiliar sound. He kept picturing strangers walking in his apartment, taking his space, rearranging it. His breath came in ragged gasps.