Trying Something New

I recently sprained both my ankles doing a lead climb outdoors. It's now been over three weeks and I'm still limping around and not really able to do a lot of physical exercise. Before I sprained my ankles, I was doing at least an hour of strenuous activity a day. Not wanting to lose my fitness or put on 20kg while I recover, I started doing some basic pool recovery training. I've never been a big fan of confined water, preferring to take a swim in the big ol' blue, but having been dumped by a few too many waves lately as I sat in the shallows unable to stand up, I have had to immerse myself in the chlorine of late. So today I decided to go to my gym's pool and do an Aqua Zumba lesson. Before the injury I used to do Zumba every Monday night in a community hall with 40+ other uncoordinated ladies, so I thought Aqua Zumba would be an easy transition back into exercise.

I nervously limped to the gym where the receptionist already had a Pump card ready for me. "Not today," I said, "I'm going in the pool." Not looking away from the computer screen, the receptionist picked up the Aqua Zumba card and handed it to me. "Good luck," she mumbled as I limped off. Of course there was a gathering of budgie smuggling swimmers, showcasing their very defined six-packs congregated around the steps which I had to take one at a time to get down, all of them staring at my awkward gait.
I started seeing a bunch of older ladies gathering at the side of the pool and I thought, 'that's where I need to be.' All the ads for Zumba suggest it's a sport for young, fit, Latin ladies who know how to shake their stuff, but I've found in reality it's a much older demographic who love it. Maybe my generation is too self-conscious to get a little silly,  I don't know.
The ladies all ranged from 45 - 70 in age and were decked in the most ridiculous and awesome bikinis, trikinis, mankinis (okay, I made that one up), but there was a great deal of colour and those strange skirt/skort bathing suits with frills, that can only mean business.
The instructor was, like all Zumba instructors are, a total babe with perfect coordination. They must hire them based on their hotness and ability to make everyone trying to follow their moves feel like a beetle on its back, not even able to  find the coordination to walk.
Once we got started, the adorable Zumba instructor would casually do a series of moves we all tried (and mainly failed) to follow. Her Korean, or maybe it was Chinese, accent made every instruction a smileable moment. "Come horward," she said, pretending to drag us in on a rope. "Now side-a-ways." I was flapping around the pool, trying not to hit my ankles on anything and next thing I knew it had been 45 minutes and we were all getting out of the pool.

It was great fun trying something new. I felt nervous, completely ridiculous and way out of my depth (pun intended), but most of all I was just happy to be back, doing some exercise and feeling some endorphins rush through my body.

So when was the last time you tried something new?

My Old Fiction - I

While I was at uni, I spent many hours slaving over assignments and some of them were creative writing. I have always wanted to share my writing somewhere but I never found out where or how (read: I'm lazy).
So here is my first creative writing piece I wrote at uni. It's old and a little rusty but finally it has a home. Feel free to let me know what you think :)

The Boy With The Blue Feet

The summer had been long, the sun stealing every last bit of moisture from the already dehydrated land. Maybe that’s why the boy’s blue feet stood out; their colour stark against the ashen sand.
Andres needed to find more work with the baby on the way and he and Isobel had been walking since Thursday. They found the boy naked and alone in a bush. The only hair on his body was a mop of curls atop his head the rest naked and dry. Isobel was the first to see him and was hit with the distinct smell of garbage as she knelt down. “What should we do?” she asked Andres. They could not leave him there; he would die. So, they gave him water which he did not drink and food which he did not eat. Isobel cleaned him and combed his lice infested hair. “We have to take him with us,” Andres said and they started walking back to the village.

The walk took four days, Isobel holding the boy’s hand the whole way. They slept on the side of the road with the boy in the middle to keep him warm; they did not have any spare clothes to dress him. Andres walked ahead, leaving Isobel to talk to the boy. He never answered but she spoke anyway; singing songs, telling him tales. Having lived with Andres, who hardly ever spoke, she seemed an endless well of words. “I’ve always lived here,” she said to him. “As long as I can remember.” The boy just kept walking, his blue feet trudging through the sand and shrubs. Neither she nor Andres talked about them. The questions were obvious but neither articulated them.

The boy was good at gathering food. “He must have survived on instinct,” Andres said on the second day of walking. Isobel said nothing.
By the third day they ran out of water. “I cannot go on without a drink,” Isobel said. Andres had become use to not having any water and ignored her request. The boy however, did not and dragged her off the path. Andres did not notice they were gone. The boy took her to a tree and pointed at it. “That’s not water,” she said. The boy dropped to his knees and started digging. Not long after the sand turned a dark yellow colour. As the boy kept digging, a little trickle of water followed. Isobel had trouble kneeling with her pregnant stomach in the way so the boy cupped his hands and she drank and when she had finished, he took her hand and they walked back to the path. Andres was out of sight and Isobel started singing again.

When they reached the village the other villagers gathered at their house. Had they found any work? they asked. No, but they had found a boy and he needed help; he had blue feet. First the elderly woman, who had cured a sick baby, was brought in. She scrubbed his feet with leaves and plants but the colour did not go away. Then she anointed them and said he was to keep them covered for two days. When Andres was not there, Isobel found chores for the boy to do as she was getting too big to move around the house. He washed the floors and cut vegetables for soup, but he never spoke. After two days, the villagers gathered at Andres’ and Isobel’s house again. The feet were unwrapped but they were even brighter than before. They tried other remedies but none worked. The others grew worried, what if he was cursed? Why would the blue not come off? Why did he never speak? Why had they brought him to their village?

When news came of ‘The Black Death’, the villagers panicked. One of the symptoms had been told to be deep purple skin so one day they came to Andres’ and Isobel’s home and told them the boy had to be taken away. “He is a curse and is threatening us all,” one said. Isobel objected, they could not take him, he was not sick and his feet were not purple. “We will not take him away if you cut his feet off,” another said. Andres did not object; he never objected to anything people told him, and the boy was taken away. Isobel’s protests were mocked. She was delusional from the pregnancy, they said. She tried to find him, asking at the markets but everyone fell silent to her questions. No one knew where he was or what they had done to him. She was due any day and Andres kept a constant watch over her, making the search harder. They had lost one child the previous year and he could not bear the shame of losing another. Isobel was told they would cut his feet off on the Day of Judas, Wednesday, six days from today.

Isobel gave birth Saturday. That day the sun was stronger than before and the village was running shorter on water than usual. Her screams were heard in every corner of every house but only Andres was with her. Hair clung to her face and her groin was covered in blood. She did not see her baby before she fainted. “There was nothing you could do,” the villagers said to each other. “It was the stress of that boy that did it,” others said. The baby was buried Sunday and Isobel, still weak from the birth, sang the same slow songs she had to the boy.

Andres went back to try find work Monday, leaving Isobel at home. She could not bear being alone and went out with new determination to the boy. She was met with sorrowful glances and pitying smiles but still nothing was said about him. On Wednesday the sun was as strong as the day of her still born. The others were praying for water but to no avail.
The boy was to have his feet cut off at noon. Isobel was in the front of the crowds flooding the streets to see it happen. When she saw the boy, his feet were wrapped with bags making him trip. His body was now covered in welts and bruises; his groin covered with a cloth, to spare his humiliation. When he walked past Isobel, she grabbed his arm and tried to run but was struck down by the man holding him. “How dare you touch this boy?” he said. “You have brought shame on our village. You should have your feet cut off as well.” Isobel did not move after that, the others shoving over her to see the action.

A cloud drifted over the village before Isobel stood up. First it cast a shadow on her legs, then her body and face. She looked up and was met with light grey clouds dancing across the sky. They turned darker, then black and before she could smile, drops of water fell on her swollen face. The others started laughing and dancing at the sight of rain, they had not seen any in over four years. The showers drowned the usual smells of faeces and animals and the heavy layers of dust finally settled. Children were running around naked; men and women washed their clothes and themselves. The streets turned into ashen streams and the boy was forgotten about, leaving Isobel to take him home again.

The rains lasted for three weeks. First everyone gathered the water they could, storing it in pots, vases and barrels. When the water did not stop, they started throwing it back out. By the second week, Andres’ and Isobel trudged through a foot of water in their living room and the boy’s feet could no longer be seen.
With the return of rain, the streets became rat infested. Soon the children complained of bites becoming infected, spreading from the legs and arms to the heart and lungs. Isobel no longer saw children in the streets and worried about the boy. He had not been bitten but she banned him from going outside, leaving him alone in the house when she went out.

The first child died 20 days after the first drops had blessed their land. The girl had large bulges sticking out from under her skin. Buboes that made her look unnatural. “They have to be cut off,” the woman who had anointed the boy’s feet said. Isobel saw them cut little holes in the lumps and yellow puss trickle down the girl’s throat and legs. No one but Isobel and the girl’s mother, Anna, stayed and watched the girl slowly die; life seeping out of her as the yellow puss mixed with the water on the floor. Isobel did not go to the girl’s funeral but she invited the mother over a couple of days later.
When she arrived Isobel was mopping the floors, trying to keep the house dry. “I’m so sorry for your loss,” she said when she saw Anna who was pale with dark rings under her eyes; her red hair messy and wet. Isobel did not hug her or treat her differently than before. Having gone through two abortions she knew the pain every glance and smile gave. The boy lurked behind the kitchen corner. He looked at Anna for a long time before he walked across the living room and hugged her. She collapsed in his arms and wailed for hours. It was not until Andres came home she stopped. Embarrassed, she quickly left the house.

The day the rain stopped, 36 children, 26 women and 29 men had died. A knock was heard at Andres’ and Isobel’s house. A group of men were standing outside, knee deep in water. “What do you want?” Isobel asked. They did not respond but rushed in and grabbed the boy. “We have been told he is responsible for the people dying,” one of them said. Isobel objected but there was nothing she could do and the boy was taken from her again. He did not protest but let the men drag him through the streets where the others were yelling and throwing rocks at him.
The town square was crowded with people wanting to see what would happen. Isobel and Andres ran to the square but they could not get to him. The boy was being held by two men on the executioner’s block. It had not been used since the man who had raped a girl had been beheaded. One of the men was standing on the block with an axe. “This boy has cursed our village,” he said. “He never speaks and he has brought The Black Death here, killing our people.”
“No!” Isobel pushed her way through the crowd. “He has done nothing wrong. We found him and took him in because he was lonely and needed a family.”
“You have brought disease here, killing men, women and children and you stand here saying it is not this boy’s fault?”
“Yes,” she said. “He has done nothing but good. He has helped me when I was alone and he means no harm.”
“Is this the belief of everyone?” he asked.
“No!” the others said. They wanted him gone. Those blue feet had caused all this misery. He had been nothing but a bad omen and they should never have allowed him to stay as long as he had.
“Please,” Isobel cried. “I will take him and go away,” but her voice was drowned out by heavy thunder.
“I will not behead him but I will cut his blue feet off. If he survives, he can stay,” the man said.
He raised the axe, the blade jagged and rusty. The first blow did not get them off. Drops of blood trickled from them on the second blow and on the third blood burst from them hitting the people in the front row. On the fourth blow the rain stopped and the boy lay motionless. The thunder subsided but no noise replaced it. The only sound was the last drops hitting the puddles. “The rains have stopped,” a woman said. People stopped looking at the limbless boy and stared at the sun as if they were babies catching the first rays. The crowd disbursed as fast as it had gathered, leaving the boy on the executioners block. Isobel walked up to him and held him. “I’m sorry,” Andres said. He had crept up behind her, jolting her as from a nightmare. He put his arms around her but she did not cry. “I should have done something,” he said.
“No, you shouldn’t have,” Isobel mumbled.

They took the boy home and washed his dirty, dead body. The smell of blood would not leave him, no matter how hard Isobel scrubbed. Andres bound his legs to close the wounds while Isobel cleaned the feet. They had lost their bright colour and were now a lifeless grey. Andres dug a hole outside the village where they buried him and his feet.

Isobel sang slow songs to it every week, the same songs she had first sung when they had found him.
The rains never returned.