“I don’t know. I’m willing to try anything at this point. It can’t get any worse, right?”
Doreen hung up the phone and rubbed the back of her neck, trying to massage out the lumps. The pain had been lingering for weeks, and not just in her neck. Everything seemed to hurt lately.
Walking on the treadmill flared the sciatica issue that kept her up at night. Three-pound dumbbells she once used for rehabilitating her shoulder, now felt like she was lifting two ancient boulders from the ruins of Stonehenge. Had she broken a small bone in her foot? Even walking Doopa, the little Yorkie, felt like a Mastiff pulling her around the subdivision. It wasn’t as though she would tell anyone, specifically a doctor, about her complaints any time soon. No, Doreen decided a more natural approach was the best bet.
She researched the internet until her thumbs hurt from typing and sliding the screen up and down. Doreen learned that apple cider vinegar helped the digestive system. Honey, she found, was a natural anti-inflammatory. There were too many CBD oils and ointments to know which one was best for all her ailments. THC as an ingredient was an option, but she might not get anything accomplished except eating the unopened bag of chips she had been avoiding for two weeks.
After all was said and done, she decided to follow her new friend, Beverly’s advice. Yoga! Since the day they met, she said that Doreen’s mind was too far in the clouds and that she needed to become more grounded.
Doreen dug out her dusty rubber yoga mat from the basement, along with the matching purple cotton-weaved stretching strap and block. Her yoga pants, or I look good in the grocery store pants, as Beverly called them, were a fashion staple, as well as oversized t-shirts that hid her cellulite weasels from onlookers. She was ready to eliminate her daily anxiety and joint pain, relax, and find her inner peace—all with the help of the thirty-minute OnDemand yoga guru.
Beverly recommended lighting a candle or two while meditating. And since the info section of the yoga video made mention of ten minutes of meditation following the yoga routine, Doreen felt obligated to make the most of her session.
The 65” plasma television helped her aging eyes to adjust to both the candles and darkened backdrop of the yoga studio on the screen. She assumed the video was probably recorded in front of a green screen, but she wasn’t about to start judging now. She needed peace.
The yoga master’s soothing voice made relaxing and taking deep, lung-filling breaths easy. He wasn’t too mundane or even overly excited like some of the cycling instructors she flipped off during the streamed personal trainer sessions.
Doreen floated through the yoga poses with ease and relief. Downward Dog. Cow Pose. Warrior Woman. They weren’t simple poses, but they were familiar in a way she would never know how to describe. She stretched and felt grounded to Earth Mother, just as the instructor suggested. A feeling of hope washed through her veins. She was lighter somehow, calmer. All the anxieties of money, sex, and weight were lifted off her shoulders, as if the Yoga Gods absorbed her negative energy. A cloud of judgement lifted and for the first time in a long time, Doreen felt whole.
The meditation segment of the recording started. As suggested, Doreen lay flat on the rubber mat. Three white candles burned on the side table next to the couch in the living room where she relaxed. A folded wool blanket supported her head. That irritated neck was a feeling of the past, long gone after such a pleasant yoga session.
The meditation guru’s soothing, tenor voice started, “Take a deep breath in through your nose and exhale through your closed mouth. Your muffled breath may sound like a growl at this point. It’s okay. Become one with your breath.”
Doreen did as the instructor suggested. She felt one with herself.
“Now, imagine you are an oak tree. Every part of your body that touches the ground where you lie…picture roots growing.”
She did as she was told.
“Roots growing from your heels, your hamstrings and buttocks. Let roots grow from your lower back and shoulders. Picture your neck and head, each having thick, deep roots stretching and attaching to middle earth.”
Doreen’s mind felt connected to something much bigger than herself. She no longer felt her own body. The image of tree roots reaching and thickening with every inch closer to the center of the earth, only enhanced the kaleidoscope of colors swirling behind her eyelids.
The yoga master sounded from the soundbar, disrupting Doreen’s meditative state. “Beverly. You are our most prized worker. This one is a perfect addition to our collection.”
Doreen’s eyes flung open. Beverly hovered, with a crooked smile lining her face. Doopa lay calm and tranquil in her crossed arms.
Did she really hear the recording talk to her friend? Was she that deep in meditation? Doreen tried to get up as her mind raced; only, she couldn’t.
Her body was wrapped in the same tree roots she had concocted in her mind. Her limbs were bound, her head a cement brick unable to move. Doreen’s frantic eyes darted from the television to her friend. “What did you do?” Tears dripped down her cheeks. “Help me! I can’t move. Help me!” Her body seeped further into the floor and into the earth, just as the yoga instructor suggested earlier. She tried desperately to free herself from the tree roots she created, but the movement only seemed to pull her down faster.
The more she struggled to free herself, the further her body began sinking in the floor. Only the lightest part of her body still remained north of the living room carpet, her head.
Beverly stood over Doreen’s lifeless body with a smirk filling her face, “And you said it couldn’t get any worse.”
One bark and two muffled laughs. That was the last thing Doreen heard as she left the comforts of her living room and dissolved into another realm.
March 2020