by S.A. Leavesley

My yoga instructor, Tammy, hasn’t said a word yet. She doesn’t need to, I see her frown. I imagine her tongue twitching like a serpent’s as I lift a small chunk of chocolate to my lips. I put it back down. Its sweetness pokes teasingly from its purple wrapper. I shove it in my pocket — out of sight, out of mind. Unlike Tammy.

“Think about your dream figure, Tina.” Tammy smiles as she sits at my table with the same elegant poise that graces her yoga movements. “That two stone you’ve got to shift.” Only Tammy can place that much weight on ‘two’ and ‘stone’, stretching the syllables like a cobra unwinding. There’s a snakelike sibilance behind everything she says, to me at least.

Forcing myself to ignore this, I pick a purple grape from the fruit bowl Tammy’s holding out. I pop it in my…