On Wednesday my body felt bent and crumpled, like a newspaper when it has been kept around the house too long, so I decided to go to a yoga class. The class was advertised on the back of a toilet cubicle and I figured if 'yoga class' wasn't a code word for something less hygienic involving baby oil then I might be able to get my body straightened out.
I arrived a couple of minutes late because I had a panic attack at the last moment and thought I had left on the oven at home. When I walked into class people had already taken out their mats and their body parts were pointing in the air at strange angles so I quickly went to a spare mat and sat down.
I looked forward at the instructor and twisted my body into a shape that resembled what she was doing. I bent my legs down into a squat, I raised my arms up above my head and turned my neck to the left hand side. That's when I noticed the man beside me. He hadn't been there when I walked in. He was looking at me, staring me straight in the eyes.
And just as quickly he looked away. He stared ahead and didn't look back. It was as if he had never been staring at me in the first place. For a moment I was convinced I had imagined it.
But he continued to stare as the night went on. I caught him staring when I had my head under my armpit in the sleeping mongoose pose. During the underwater moose fish posture he was throwing swift looks over to me. And finally, during the balloon popping carrier pigeon pose, he gave up all pretence and continued to stare at me until I was forced to look away.
I was beginning to fear I had read the wrong sign on the wrong cubicle door. I quickly went to the cloakroom to collect my bags and leave.
And he was already there. He stood by my locker, brown haired, high cheek boned, eyes disappearing under the cave of his eyebrows. I refused to be intimidated. I walked up to my locker and began to pull my jacket and bag from inside.
"What's that on your jacket?" he asked. His voice was deep and unnervingly calm. He pointed his finger and it rested on my beige jumper.
"Tomato soup", I answered and it was true – it was heating up the soup that had made me so paranoid about the hot plate on the oven.
"Right," he said, "I bet it's straight from the can."
It was straight from the can. I didn't see why he needed to know about my eating habits.
"I really have to go," I said and swiftly made my way out the door.
I was nervous and began to jog down the alleyway beside the yoga centre. It was one of those alleyways where you shrink a little if you pass someone and look continually at the ground as if there is something important to be read down there. I finally reached my car and let myself in. I sat looking forward at the dashboard, the still car began to slow down the beating of my pulse. When I felt confident and calm, I put the key in the ignition and began to rev.
That's when I felt the wire around my throat. The engine choked like someone when water goes down the wrong side of your throat and it faded away to nothing. The man from the yoga class had somehow made his way into the back seat of my car.
"What – you –?" I said. It wasn't overly intelligible but I think it said what it needed to.
"What's with the axe in the back of your car?" he asked. His voice was still calm, like an answering machine.
"It's – it's my Mother's. I chop wood for her."
"Is that all you chop for your mother?"
I thought for a brief moment and realised it was so I said "yes".
"Then how do you explain the shovel?"
I was digging potatoes. That was for my mother as well. I told him that and added that it was a perfectly healthy relationship that I had with my mother, even though I visited her a bit more often than she would like. I didn't want him to think that I was still emotionally dependent on her. The man was beginning to change, he seemed a little flustered.
"There's no point in lying to me," he said. "I saw the blood on your jumper."
"It's sauce," I told him again. "Here, smell it –"
"I know blood when I see it. Nothing congeals like blood."
"It's from a can."
"I can smell it on your…"
He took a sniff and paused. He slumped back in his seat. The wire gently slithered free from my neck and I began to breathe again. I turned around and the man looked annoyed.
"So you've never killed anyone?" he said.
"No" I replied.
"Never? You have never – at any point in your life – killed anybody?"
I took a brief moment, realised that I hadn't and answered "No". The man crossed his arms. He mumbled under his breath something that had the word 'git', he bumbled out of the car and stumbled off with his shoulders slouched. I began to start the engine when he turned around, tapped on my window and asked if he could get a lift to the station. He hadn't brought his car.
Afterwards, I went home, had a shower and put some anti-disinfectant on my neck just in case the man hadn't cleaned the wire before he used it. I sat down and watched the television and the lottery draw – not a single one of my numbers came up - then turned over to the shopping channel, saw a best of CD from the seventies and picked up the phone to buy it and then realised I didn't have a credit card. It turned out to be a pretty crap evening.