Gemotions

“Just sort the damn things, Michael,” his sister had instructed, her voice sharp over the phone. Michael hated it, this task. He hated the feeling of being in his father’s old apartment. It reminded him too much of the times he had failed him, of the ways he had fallen short.

He was going through his father's desk, a mess of unpaid bills and old receipts, when he stumbled upon a folded envelope. His father’s formal letter of resignation from the university, decades ago. It was brief and to the point: “My intellectual curiosity has dimmed.”

He looked at the letter, feeling a creeping sense of understanding, of something unnameable. His father had been a brilliant man, but the brilliance had faded. He, Michael, felt the same way. He didn't know how to carry on, how to fix any of the problems. He tossed the letter into a box and decided it could wait.