Stories for the gym.

The calorie reading flashed past on the dashboard. I visualized a slice of margarita with dollops of cheese I had for lunch, vanish like a genie in a Walt Disney movie. The big red button read Emergency stop or “Don’t torture yourself. Click here” or something to that effect. I ignored the lure. It was a pizza buffet lunch and the damage done was considerable; the calories to burn infinite. I increased gradient and kept running.

The gym was on the third floor and I could see the cobbled street below me open up like an opera. It was a different matter though that Debenhams, the super market round the corner had closed and there was not a soul in sight. So it was like an opera alrite’, but with no show. Curtains down. Empty balconies. Nothing happening.

What happens when there is nothing to entertain is this. The brain cells send a ‘Hi, how are you doing’, enquiry message to the rest of the body. The optic nerve nudges all and sundry around and picks up readings from the dashboard. ‘This freak’s running quite a bit today, eh’ it sends back to its well wisher back at the attic. ‘Hell, I am fuckin’ stretched’ respond the calf muscles. A board meeting of brain cells later a red button somewhere on the dashboard is clicked and a poor panting, gasping me is reclining in the comforts of a chair nearby.

But just when I was resigning for the cytological parody to unfold, something happened today. A young man dressed all in black came walking up the deserted street below. Resting against the Debenhems shop window, he kept speaking animatedly into his mobile phone. And minutes later, as though on a directors prompt, a girl in her teens also appeared from the opposite end. She looked around emptily for sometime and then rested against the same shop window a little away from where the young man stood.

Furtive glances exchanged and the girl uneasily tucked at her T-shirt. She fumbled inside her handbag and keyed some imaginary number into her mobile phone. I could see chemistry brewing; smoldering. I waited like at the movies for the young man to finish his call and Cupid to ignite the lull of the street below. A few moments and then a few more. The young man disconnected the call and the girl stood up. She walked back the same way she had come. The young man looked at his watch and walked the other way, without even a glance.

I looked at the empty Debenhems shop window; at the now empty cobbled street below. Was all that I saw mere fantasies fabricated in the mind. Somewhere, something transpired, a button in red got clicked and I……..

P.S: The author ran two miles and burnt 180 calories this nite :)