🕊️ Fit to Last

Anna woke up from a bright light that shone through her eyelids. It was strong sunlight from the window without a curtain. She stretched out her arms and realized her shoulders were hurting a little from sleeping on the floor, or maybe from crawling through the tunnel yesterday.

She did a little warm-up when she saw that Mitra woke up too and rubbed his eyes, trying to concentrate.

"Hi," he smiled at her. "You look so fresh! Guess you're a morning person."

"Yeah, I'm used to doing my morning stretches right after I get out of bed..."

"Great! Remember, you promised to let me see..."

"Did I?.." She looked out of the window and burst into tears suddenly.

"What... Please don't... I didn't mean to force it, I was just trying to be a good friend and support a fellow performer... Maybe learn something or share something I know, that's all..."

"No, sorry, I just saw that..." She pointed at the window. Mitra got up and immediately saw the picture outside. The building across the street was almost completely black. It looked like a burnt corpse, if only buildings could have corpses...

"I think it caught fire and burned down while we slept," Mitra said quietly.

They looked out into the street, the whole area looked completely dead, not a single movement was visible, not even birds.

"We should go," Mitra began to look for what to take with him. He found an unfinished carton of milk, it still smelled good. "Is it true that contortionists love milk? I heard it's good for the bones, so you should drink it."

"Wait..." Anna was standing by the window when he turned to her. "I... I thought about what you said yesterday... If we die today, what will be our last memory of this life? I thought maybe we could show each other the best things we've learned to do in this life... We could be each other's last audience... I don't know, maybe I'm just stupid..."

"No, no, I feel you. We've been training for so many years, and if this is our last stand..."

Anna silently nodded, her face was so sad that Mitra decided to brighten it up at all costs.

"Wait, I totally forgot to tell you about my other hobby! Actually I don't dance all day, I also go to an art college, I'm studying to be an artist. I usually go to parks to draw people, because I love the human figure and sometimes I'm lucky to find people doing yoga, but yesterday, when I saw your performance, I tried to sketch one of your poses..."

He took out a small palm-sized sketchbook from his pocket. "It's a pity I didn't have time to finish it..."

"Oh my... is that me? How wonderful! You're so talented, Mitra! You know what, I can do this pose for you right now, so you can finish it!"

Anna stood on one foot and lifted the other one behind her back so high that her legs spread into a full split, and her back arched so much that her shoulders were still above the level of her butt.

She was so fit and flexible that she held the bend without using her arms and almost defying the law of gravity, keeping her spine arched backwards using only her back muscles.

It was amazing she could this in the morning without any warm-up, Mitra thought. He didn't need to be convinced more, he pulled out a small pen from his tiny sketchbook and quickly began to lay down strokes, while Anna held the difficult position, never losing her balance. In some ways she looked heroic, he thought and wondered why contortion poses were never used in patriotic art and monuments.

After a couple of minutes, Mitra noticed that she had tears in her eyes again. "Hey, don't stress so hard, give yourself a break, this sketch is not that important..."

"No, it is!" She put her foot on the floor, even the way she straightened her body was full of grace. "It doesn't hurt me to pose, I was just thinking something... Mitra, promise me... If I die, you will turn your sketch into an amazing painting to keep a good memory of me. And I will look at it from heaven and feel happy."

"Don't say things like that, it hurts the ear like detuned strings... First of all, we'll both get to a safe place, I'm sure of it. Secondly, this is not just a promise, I am totally determined to turn it into a stunning artwork. But more importantly, I want to go to your performances every day and do a lot more sketches!"

She ran up and wrapped her arms around his neck. He hugged her tightly and they could feel each other's hearts beating hard, the beats resonated in their ears...

After a while, they suddenly looked at each other with changed expressions. They were both glad to be alive, but even more glad to have found each other. The tears in Anna's eyes now looked more like happy tears after meeting that very special person she had been waiting for so long.