The atmosphere in Tonic Gym is subdued today. The sad cyclists are here. People skirt around them. Nathalie stays behind the counter. She doesn’t bestow three kisses on us.
I don’t know if they are sad or not. I know nothing about them. The assumptions I make are based on the off-kilter atmosphere, furtive glances thrown in their direction and my feverish imagination. They are different from the rest of us.
Three are on bikes, cycling very slowly. Two are walking on conveyor belts, and one is on the cross-trainer. Their movements are completely without drive or energy or effort, and have a sustained slackness. They are floppy puppets. They perform in slow motion to an inner music or perhaps an overwhelming silence that the rest of us can’t hear. They wear odd combinations of day clothes and sports wear. One cycles in brown office shoes with loose laces. Another is in ski dungarees, tight white socks gripping skinny ankles. Around their necks are faded, worn towels, the stripy sort you still see sometimes on wooden rollers in hospital bathrooms. Their faces are pale, as if they never feel the sun. Their skin tone is putty. They have bed hair. I don’t mean gelled funky bed hair but hair that suggests the owner spends a lot of time lying down. Their eyes are disconcerting. They are sad. So very absent and sad. They aren’t watching the video. They aren’t looking around, taking in their surroundings, taking quick peeps at the other people. They do not share smiles or nods or a mouthed Bonjour. Their blank eyes focus on an inward private world or perhaps on nothing at all.
Where do they come from?
Do they like it here?
Do they enjoy moving arms and legs to their own heartbeat?
Is there contentment in cycling to a foggy silence?
Or does nothing register?
Tomorrow, will it be forgotten?
It’s time to go. They are told to get off the bikes. They huddle in the foyer. The two people who came with them usher them out, and they go obediently, like small children. Their eyes remain on the blind spots and inner visions and dreams. They form a line and walk slowly out of the door.
No-one kisses them.