The Seasons

Minoth's attachment to the gym sat enshrined, midfield of mind, reminiscent of the way such religious fanatics - the real ones - as he'd met hanging around Amalthus treated going to church. It wasn't a status symbol nor a mere routine or ritual; it wasn't a matter of dressing to appear properly, but of vesting to rise to the occasion, the task, the ordeal through which you were about to toil.

You didn't go to the gym to look good. You didn't look good while you were there either. You didn't have to look good showing up, just wear a pair of shoes that showed you gave a shit and commit to the damn thing.

You didn't talk to the other attendees unless you needed a spot - and you tried not to need a spot. You didn't comment, you didn't compare. If you had a goal, you kept it to yourself.

It wasn't about "fitness", which was why that word didn't appear in the name of the place. Minoth wasn't even sure he knew it, half the time. Gold something (lots of businesses in Auresco were gold, which meant they were A-1 generic). Not like he ever needed to direct coworkers to join him off the clock. Let alone friends.

Minoth didn't have friends. He just had the punching bag, which didn't punch back. It smelled like leather and sweat and it sounded like chains (in a disguise, the incenser's sweet poison). Over the years, he'd conditioned himself into a state of "the less said the better" about his day-to-day gripes - not repression, but dismission. He beat it into the bag, and the bag didn't beat back.

He knew all the faces that belonged among the grid of bags and racks and not a single mirror. Catalogued, pneumonic'd. A cast he refused to identify himself as part of, though he knew he couldn't escape.

Grizzled faces. Down-trodden, dull. No one came here to sparkle. No blood, no tears. Seldom words.

(From this description, you'd anticipate that Minoth had a less-than-positive experience at the gym, no? But he reveled in it. No, he was in his glory.)

Most of the faces were either dark, darkened by stubble, or darkened despite paleness by sheer seriosity.

A gleaming, statuesque polo-shirt model anchored by a department-store-designer gym bag was supremely unserious, and Minoth would contort himself into several tension headaches later trying desperately to deny the realization that he was actually looking forward to returning to his mecca on the morrow.

To inquire? To study? To pursue? To ward away?

Minoth didn't know, couldn't know. He'd never actually wanted to talk to anyone else he'd seen there.

And all it had taken was a disarmingly mellow, "Well, you've certainly been working hard."