a fourteenth new story... 'yoga class'

Erica felt fat, bloated, like a sponge pudding, so she took herself to yoga class. Her best friend Caitlin came along.  It was Caitlin’s idea.  Most things were Caitlin’s idea – Caitlin had an answer for everything, and you couldn’t tell her anything.

‘Well, I feel swell’, said Caitlin as they changed out of their lycra back at Erica’s flat, two hours later.  ‘I really feel I could get into it’. Caitlin had a zest for life that made her attractive to vacuous, boring men, and often enough unbearable to interesting women.  Erica was struggling to take off her pink jogging bottoms, hopping up, down on one leg, her other cocked diagonal – the Fucking Tree Position!

Once they had showered and dressed, they sat at the glass table in Erica’s kitchenette and drank dandelion tea. ‘If we are to do this properly’, said Erica, ‘you realise we are going to have to give up caffeine and alcohol?’. ‘And chocolate, saturated, and mono-saturated fats, negative carbs’, added Caitlin, ‘besides caffeine and alcohol decrease your muscle tone’.  Erica excused herself, got up and limped to the bathroom.

Next morning, Erica awoke having slept lumpily.  She blinked tiredly at her white-washed bedroom ceiling, trying to figure out whether it was raining outside, or whether it was just the water pipes, or the shower in the upstairs apartment.  Eventually after much self-cajoling Erica managed to drag back her bed covers, heavily swing her legs out of bed.  It was raining: a fight with her umbrella and the inevitable prevailing wind would ensue on her way to work, where she would turn up looking like a drowned and bedraggled, wigged guinea pig in a dress.

‘It’s nothing to feel demoralised about’, offered Caitlin, as they sat lunchtime in the office canteen, Erica picking at her Caesar Salad (no mayo). ‘He simply wasn’t, isn’t good enough for you’. A drowned and bedraggled guinea pig?! Erica shoveled a mouthful of cruton and ice berg lettuce into her mouth. ‘Who needs a man who pays you no attention anyway’, Caitlin continued, delicate hands cradling a Styrofoam cappuccino. Those rings, thought Erica, they are so bogus.

And then it was Thursday and yoga class number two. Caitlin had bought some new sweat bands for the occasion, for wrists and forehead.  Day-glo Steffi Graff? While, Erica felt like a pregnant sow going to abattoir. They arrived early, rolled out their mats, and the instructor – Charleze? - suggested they sit tight, close their eyes and try and access deep mind while they waited for their fellow keep-fit friends. Erica imagined herself as a piggy bank, her mouth a slot through which people forced cheese sandwiches, liquor chocolates, chocolate coffee beans.

When all the women had assembled, varicose veined, lithe and nimble, they began with yet another ‘beginner pose’ – The Pigeon.  Charleze demonstrated as if it were something she did after brushing her teeth every morning – it probably was – or, in between conference calls at work. ‘It’s a great pose’, Chareze was purring, ‘it makes you feel you’ve been coupled up all day’.  Coupled up to what? Erica mused, a whole refrigerator unit?

So they took their beginner’s stance and Charleze began the commands. ‘Step one: Expand your chest’.

Suddenly, Erica felt a rush of nausea. ‘Inhale’. Sick, sick in her stomach. ‘Gaze upward’.  The sports hall lights were blinding, dizzying. The corrugated-iron roof was swimming. 'This is for your sciatic nerve', sang Charleze. Erica’s whole body felt trussed up, arched over, suspended awkwardly in mid-air like an insect lava in a synthetic bright pink cocoon. What do I care about scia - The music of the pan pipes Aarrrrgh.

‘Repeat!’ Charleze barked. 

And Erica dropped.

When she opened her eyes again, she thought she was in hell.