Gemotions

It was the fifth one, or sixth, he wasn’t sure. Andrew glanced down at the email, the headline a familiar sting. He had lost count of the countless applications, the essays he’d poured his soul into. Each refusal cut a little deeper.

His shoulders slumped, his spine aching with fatigue. He wanted to scream but knew the sound would get trapped, suffocated by the walls of his tiny apartment. He stared blankly at the wall, at a poster of a mountain range that mocked his current immobility.

He slowly walked to the refrigerator and grabbed a bottle of water, taking a long, silent swallow.