The Last Yogi

Flash Fiction, Part 2

Click here for Part 1 in case you missed it...

Health Journal, November 26: Joint pain, knees and hips - Day 105. Fatigue and headache again.

I’ve been keeping a health journal for a few months, but I’ve had symptoms for longer than that. Pain all over, joints burning like bone scraping on bone: legs, shoulders, hips, back. Deep down. And the fatigue. A weary malaise, like a hangover mixed with jet lag and despair. You can’t move or get up.

I don’t know why it started or what it is, but it’s going around, spreading among us. That’s for sure. Some kind of autoimmune thing, the unnamed disease I’d been hearing about before all of us started disappearing. As reported on the news, back when there was news.

Joints and muscles first, then the fatigue and headaches. Finally gut pain, likely the terminal symptom, according to those news reports. Once it’s in your stomach you’re done for essentially. Game over. Cruel, a simple stomachache to mark the end. I’ve had a hundred scares of course. Hunger, expired food, worry. Stomachaches just because you get stomachaches.

The pain comes and goes, stretches of no-problem followed by flare-ups caused by who-knows-what. I started to write it down in hopes of realizing my own diagnosis. With all the data I should have charts and graphs by now, but I can only type words on this thing.

I haven’t found a remedy for the pain - I assume no one has. When it comes it comes. There’s no medicine, after all, at least not the medicine I remember. The kind that makes you feel better.

And no doctors, for god’s sake. That’s not what they’re for now.

“Damn I love egg rolls,” Luna sighs with her mouth full, her head back and eyes closed. Amazing that a restaurant still survives in the city, Eastside Chow Mein. But wasn’t it always the Chinese restaurants that stayed open no matter what? The owner is Mrs. Chung, not one of them but sometimes you wonder. She’s brutal, a real disciplinarian. Strict about the menu, the clientele, the opening hours. You eat what you’re given, pay what she demands, beat it when she kicks you out. And when she’s closed she’s closed.

Somehow the place endures. That’s called customer loyalty. Either that or she’s practically the only game in town. Or both.

I sit across from my new friend from the gym, my recent workout a fleeting memory. “We have to talk,” she’d said at the gym, then a long car ride in silence. I gave up my car long ago, with no funds to charge it or pay for maintenance. Maybe I could’ve sold it, to someone or something, but I just left it on the side of the road. Keep your head down, I say. Anyway, I walk everywhere now.

Between the promise of new information and the intoxicating Chinese flavors, yoga class is no longer on my mind. Eastside is even more a luxury than the gym. The aromas remind me of before.

Luna shovels in more fried rice while I sit impatiently waiting for her news. She wolfs down her meal like it’s her last. Maybe it is. I realize I’m starving for information, anything new and real.

“Where in the hell does she get shrimp?” she contemplates aloud while she chews. Fresh food is in limited supply, to put it mildly. Proteins, vegetables, the lot. “Let alone scallions…?”

I fear the wrath of Mrs. Chung as much as I admire her ingenuity, and I’m careful not to look in her direction while we eat. I once asked her where she got her fresh eggs.

“From chickens, moron!” She’s not in a good mood, now or ever.

Eventually Luna finishes her incredibly expensive meal, her eyes still closed while she slowly chews, as though savoring something she’ll never again taste. She’s paid for both of us from her device, using an enormous number of credits. I couldn’t afford this with the scant allotment I have remaining, and I’m not sure how I’ll get through the rest of the month as it is.

She wipes her mouth then sets both hands down, framing her plate. Her fingers are outstretched, gently pressing into the countertop, supportive like a yoga table pose. Her shoulders are relaxed, and she opens her eyes and fixes me with a gaze that is calm and intentional. I sense bad news and focus on the scar on her cheek.

“It’s time,” she says at last, neither excited nor indifferent. “You’re up.”

I’m staring ahead blankly, at a vague point somewhere above Luna’s left shoulder, like I’ve come to after blacking out. Maybe this is what I was afraid of. Or it could be I wasn’t expecting this. Either way her words aren’t registering. I’m not sure how much time has passed when she speaks again.

“Hello? I said you’re up,” she announces. “It’s your turn.” She snaps her fingers as if waking me from hypnosis. I realize my mouth is open and close it.

“My turn for what?” I try, addressing her head. Her lengthening brush cut is black with lighter roots. When it grows out her hair will be a different color.

“Don’t be stupid,” she snaps. “You know for what.” She leans toward me, menacingly, her fingers tented on the table like she might pounce.

It comes to me that I’ve seen her around. In the neighborhood near where I live, at the gym, on the street. I hardly go anywhere but I’m remembering now that she’s often there.

She’s speaking into her device now, her voice even. “I’ve got him,” she says. A pause while she closes her eyes and holds her forehead in her free hand, rubbing. “Don’t worry,” she answers with resolution. “He’ll be there.”

She ends the call and again looks up at me across the table. At last I see the urgency in her eyes, which are a sort of hazel that’s more green than brown. They’re burning.

“Let’s go.”