By Jack Mint
EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is part of a series of short stories written by local thespian Jack Mint. Mint submits stories for writing contest with NYC Midnight, who hosts short-story and screenplay contests nationally where writers are tasked with writing and submitting a story in 24 hours. Others writers interested in participating in the contest can go to nycmidnight.com.
Rachel had signed up for a new tradition of one hundred sun salutations to conclude the new year. On the fifteenth downward dog, she farted so loud the sound echoed around the yoga studio. She imagined the face of the cute guy behind her formed into a grimace.
She tried not to let the gastric explosion phase her and pretended to move resolutely from the downward dog into the right foot lunge. Her face, the calm of the mountain. Her spirit, the wind above the sea. She was everything her girlfriends thought of her since Caleb boarded a plane to Japan. The soft music in the yoga studio may have been what he heard as he strode through a Tokyo terminal for a new life of teaching overseas.
He told her that he had to leave her to find peace. Rachel told herself she was coming to peace here where yoga bent compassion into the muscle straining exaltation of meditative breathing. It seemed everyone else was at peace on front fold number twenty while sweat plopped off the top of her brow. None of the other streamlined beauties surrounding her were plopping imperfect strenuous discharge onto their brand-new yoga mats their loving, home-staying husbands had bought them. Rachel transitioned into the praying hands at the chest for the twenty-first time and realized that barely a quarter of the way through, one hundred sun salutations by midnight was very, very far away.
In the hum of inhales and exhales, she didn’t want to move. She didn’t want to stand up for the sixty-fourth time and raise her hands above her head in this nexus of spiritual peace. She didn’t want to find that airline ticket from LAX to Tokyo accidently when she was looking for her car keys. Her legs quivered and she thought she would fall and maybe never get back up. Rachel’s knees buckled did fall flat on her second-time yoga pants.
Not many seemed to notice. Were they that lost in their own existential nirvana that they couldn’t see why Caleb had abruptly left her after four years? Because she couldn’t be perfect? This time last year, he held her hand in their annual tradition of strolling along river. Caleb kissed her without caring if it was midnight of New Year’s Eve or not.
Rachel glanced at the new Fitbit she bought and rolled up her yoga mat as if she remembered she suddenly had somewhere to be. She made a beeline for the door before the instructor could reach her. She called herself stupid for trying to make a new tradition in the absence of the only love she thought she’d ever find. The tears burst before she even made it to the car. Everything had fallen apart on such a terrible year. That could only mean the next year, and all following years would just be piles of waste. They would just pile up until they mimicked the thirty-five years of waste she thought she was now. Rachel collapsed onto the car roof and sobbed. Rachel’s girlfriends never saw how Caleb had broken her in half, how the mountains had crumbled and seas dried up.
Rachel felt a tap on her shoulder, and she whirled around. The entire yoga studio stood with her in the parking lot. They would all miss one hundred salutations by midnight, Rachel tried to explain through her tears. The instructor took her into a hug. It wasn’t right then, that Rachel healed deep down. But it was the beginning of a different woman amongst imperfect people.
