Each limb is being attacked, spread, pinned.
My hair is yanked back with a violent jerk and as my throat is exposed, the man with the twisted nose leans down. His breath is sour and hot against my skin.
Then a thick gob of spit lands on my cheek, sliding down toward my ear. I can’t move my hands to wipe it away. I’m splayed out like a dead butterfly in a framed collection.
My vision narrows and blurs.
There is nothing I can do.
So I look up at the high, shadowed rafters of the gym, and envision myself hanging from a rope. Anything but this. As the fabric of my jumpsuit is ripped away, I imagine my neck snapping and everything awful just…turning to dust.
One of them grinds a heavy foot into my inner thigh to keep my legs apart, and the pain is a white-hot spike that pierces through my dreams of death.
I can bleed into my shoes and still smile.
That was the lie my instructors told me while they taped my bleeding toes.
But that was for beauty’s sake, and here there is only ugly. No Prokofiev orTchaikovskyto drown out the wet, eager sounds of the men above me.
I wish with everything I have, I could float away, leaving my body behind for them to ruin.
The air in my lungs is gone. I’m not just breaking; I’m dissolving into the grit of the floor.
My heart is freaking out.
Wump-ppp.
Wump-ppp.
14. LONDON
I’m a mole in a hole.
I’m a fox in a box.
I’m a bunny in a…run-ny?
I’m a jester who’s been…sequestered? I’m a jester who’s been…digested?
There it is. Boom, goes the dynamite.
This building has eaten me whole. I’m poor Jonah.
Jonah with mega-burning hips. Time to relax. I unhook my legs from behind my neck and roll myself flat once more. Nan always said boredom was a state of mind. And my mind doesn’t like it, let me tell you.
Boredom, that is.
So, what’s next?
Back to the upside down.
The Guinness World Record for the longest held single-arm handstand isone minute and forty-eight seconds. I’ve already got it beat, but haven’t made it to two minutes yet.
Le sigh.
My favorite possession in the whole world is my Guinness World Records book. It’s the thing I miss most about home. Apart from Nan.
One day I’m going to get the Guinness judges to witness all my record beating in one grand reveal that makes their monocles pop. A showstopper, but only if I up my game.
