Brief but Brilliant

I was a top athlete—the envy of my peers. On race day, townsfolk would turn out to cheer me on. I was a local hero, unbeaten in three years—that's one hundred and eighty five races to you. I lost count of the number of trophies and medals that I accumulated over that period. My uncle Al, not known for his carpentry skills, handcrafted two cupboards—one for my silverware, the other for my ego.

Then, on my eleventh birthday everything changed.

I can trace the start of my prolific yet brief career to an occasion when I ran a mile in eight minutes while being chased through a forest by a celibate Jesuit. Though he was persistent in a way that only celibates can be, he never caught me—for him it was all about the chase. I knew this because he had made it virtually impossible for himself—negotiating a forest floor in four inch heels is tricky. So it wasn't a shock when I heard one day that he'd broke his heel, fell down an embankment and drowned in a swamp. At his autopsy the coroner put the cause of death down to a combination of misadventure and ruptured bunions. He was eighty two.

After three months of these not so trivial pursuits I had broken the six minute mile and had grown nine inches taller. When sports day came around, I swept the boards, winning every race I entered. Winning became an addiction—I wasn't winning often enough so I quit the long distance stuff and concentrated instead on sprinting. Sprinting meant that I could win more races more often.

I knew my days at the top were numbered at a community race day in Larry McCrudden's field on a balmy Sunday evening in the fall of 1974. On the day that I was planning to show off my new sideburns, Charles "Crunchie" McCormack emerged from the pack and pushed me all the way to the finish line in the 100 yard dash. Crunchie had gone from runt to antelope in a matter of weeks and though he still made farmyard noises—suddenly he was heir to my throne. Yes, I had won but something died that day.

And so it transpired, the growth spurt that I had experienced three years previous had a hidden non-exclusivity clause. All of a sudden everyone was five feet ten with pubes. And they could run as fast as me.

Rather than be considered a mere mortal and suffer the ignominy of defeat I decided to quit while I was ahead. On the eve of my thirteenth birthday I retired from athletics, my pride intact, my reputation preserved, forever.

FOR SALE: Flashlight (with batteries), Compass, Snorkel and a Short Wave Radio...

I was thrilled, and not a little relieved to hear scientists claim recently that the fabled G-spot does not exist.

Unhappy Baby

I was paralysed with trepidation, crippled by fear. "You'll fart," they warned. That didn't worry me, I'd been practicing sphincter control for weeks—doing push-ups with my legs spread apart while downing litre bottles of Pellegrino. Breaking wind was the least of my worries, breaking my back was more of a concern as I wandered sheepishly into my first yoga class.

The first thing I noticed was the nondescript New Age music that filled the studio. For some strange reason it reminded me of my father. Despite his love of Strauss, Mendelssohn and Mahler he always warned me about music without verses and choruses believing strongly that it was a gateway to narcotics addiction, or self publishing.

There were five others in the room, all female, all focused. They were folding like paper and the class hadn't even started. I felt intimidated—it reminded me of those gloriously agile women who appeared in the early Bond flicks—you know, the ones who cart-wheeled and high-kicked Connery's ass while the guy with the cat escaped in the pod.

Looking as inconspicuous as a red wine stain on a white rug I wandered around, waving my arms, limbering up, trying to look impressive while taking a mental note of first aid box in the corner of the room.

Finally the class started. Like a team of synchronized swimmers we got into our stride almost immediately. There was something intensely erotic about watching my new yoga buddies going through their paces but sex was the last thing on my mind, I was too busy dealing with my first hernia of the day. I had attempted a move which I hadn't tried since I was three months old.

As near death experiences go it was the closest I'd come. I can't recall the final fifty two minutes of the hour-long class—I wasn't conscious, I had passed out, or fallen asleep but it didn't matter because I had done so in a relaxed state, the tail of my spine firmly rooted to the earth.