Gemotions

The familiar scent of burnt coffee filled the air as she entered. Her steps dragged across the worn wooden floor, each movement a laborious effort. The living room was dim, the curtains drawn against the persistent grayness outside. He was sitting on the sofa, bathed in the pale light of the television.

He turned, his eyes lighting up. He opened his mouth, and then a clumsy, yet clear, "Guten Tag, Liebling," emerged. She stopped dead. The sound of her native tongue, so intimately familiar, felt foreign and strange coming from him.

A deep sigh escaped her, the air leaving her lungs as if she were a punctured tire. She just wanted to sit down, to not speak, to not feel the tremor that had started in her hands and was now spreading through her entire frame. The world seemed to be closing in.