[3] Animal Ally

I’m in breathing class, trying to hold my own, and the instructor wants us to call up our animal ally. This is always the hardest part and I desperately want to come up with something, anything, like everyone else. My breathing gets faster. I start to panic. I think of a cat, only I’m allergic to cats, and I start to sneeze and my eyes get red so I quick change it to a dog—but I’ve been afraid of dogs since I was six when the neighbor’s Jack Russell took a chunk out of me, so I’m breathing hard, sweating like a pig and the instructor sees I’m not breathing right while everyone else in the class is doing so perfectly, and she starts to walk over, and I think—crap, I have no animal allies in this world—not one. I can’t even breathe right. I am such a loser.

Then I remember, my savior, my ally, my very own higher self. My eyes go to the corner of the room, to the ancient, intricate cobweb covering the dirty window. I lock onto the spider with my spirit gaze, feel my breath begin to slow, look around, smiling, smiling into my breath just like the teacher says. But, oh no, the guy next to me in blue spandex is looking at the same corner, that copy cat, and I say, Oh no you don’t buster, she’s mine, get your own dang animal ally. I start to breathe hard, chug even, it’s a race to the finish line, and at the last second I hook him with my elbow, well more a nudge really, and he falls back on his mat and I smile, smile into my breath, which is perfect now, triumphant and grim.