Gemotions

"Another late night at the office, honey?" Mark's wife, Susan, asked from the doorway, her voice laced with concern. Mark nodded, his throat tight, his face pale under the harsh fluorescent lights of the convenience store where he was working the night shift.

He'd seen Mr. Finch, his neighbor, pull up in a brand new sports utility vehicle earlier that day. A man who, despite his apparent riches, treated everyone with a smile. Mark, on the other hand, felt the ever present feeling of suffocation.

He felt pinned down, weighed down by the financial pressures that kept him tethered to the same routine day after day. He looked at his hands, calloused and worn, and a familiar sense of hopelessness washed over him. He felt as though the air had been sucked out of the room.