I am in a really good mood this morning. I woke up feeling well rested and just ready to jump into my day. That just so rarely happens. Not that i am not in general a happy person. I just don’t like mornings. They bring out my grumpy side. But not today. No clue why, but I’ll take it.
Okay this is a prompt I am going to have to continue. I really like my character. I just need to find the right story for her.
Tuesday, December 20th: Sweat rolled down her spine.
Sweat rolled down her spine. The calm voice of the instructor rolled out over the crowd instructing them to change positions. She shifted into the new position, feeling the sweat continue its downward path. “I’m going to look like I wet myself,’ she decided. ‘I won’t have buns of steel but a soggy bottom.’
The thought made her think of cake. She looked up and saw the world beyond the gym. The window faced the street and even thought they were assured the glass was tinted and no one could see in, they could see out. Across the street was her favorite bakery. Thoughts of cake intensified as she again shifted positions as directed.
This one was less stretching and more moving in place. She swung her arms and shifted her weight like the others but instead of looking graceful she felt every part of her jiggle. The arms on the other ladies sliced cleanly through the air and while there were a few glistening brows, no one was sweating as she was. No one else seemed as out of breath as she was either.
‘Well what did you expect?’ she thought. ‘You do outweigh everyone here by around a hundred pounds.’ She eyed the instructor as they were told to move once again and she followed the movements as instructed. The sweat seemed to have turned into molten lava at this point and she could feel it searing into her muscles. No one else batter an eyelash in consternation. Muscles she didn’t know she had burned as she was seared from the heat of her own sweat.
While she maintained the appearance of outward calm she began to mentally cures out everything and everyone who led her to this situation. While she couldn’t remember the last time she utter a word of profanity out loud, now words and terms were pulled from the depths of her very being and she used every filthy name she could call anyone, ranting inside her head. No one was spared, including her self. She took full responsibility for adding to her weight. She had a love of food and had long ago lost sight of what a proper portion size was supposed to be,. She took that blame, but there was still plenty to go around. She started with the people who marketed Items as low calorie and cited a portion only had 100 calories and let you believe the container was one portion when it was in fact carved into five. She dove into a hearty condemnation at people who demonized an ingredient or made another into a hero in order to sell fitness books and merchandise and they slammed straight into her doctor who told her that she needed to get more exercise and get her weight down to a respectable level.
She looked at his skinny frame and wondered what was so disrespectable about being overweight. She didn’t ask him though, she never voiced any such question aloud. But as his comment about respectability lead her hear, in her head she heaped profanity upon him as the instructor told them it was finally time to cool down.
She tried not to gasp in relief as they were led in a series of cool down exercises. The session ended and the class began to break up. She wondered if others would approach as she was clearly a new comer to the class. None did. She shrugged. As she was no doubt red-faced, panting and looking like she wet her pants, she could hardly blame them for keeping their distance.
Ten til Midnight 