Jim's Gym Journey

somehow. It swept over the room with a soft whistle , the cold settling into his aching bones. Somewhat shaken, he prematurely moved onto the next room. The door to the administrative section was heavy and built too close to the floor. He usually had to throw his weight behind it to get it open. This time, however, the rusted handle yielded without resistance and it swung open silently. Somebody must have finally oiled the hinges. Jim shut the door behind him and turned into the room, intending to continue his routine. He took a step before doing a double take. Instead of the administrative section, he found himself standing at the automatic doors to the main room again, on the opposite side of the gym. He didn’t remember walking over there. Odd enough, sure, but he was willing to dismiss it as a sign of old age. His ex- wife had always warned him, Jim, if you don’t start taking things seriously, you’ll start losing it. He was never really listening at the time, although some part of him was starting to wish he had been. Fresh air is what he really needed, he decided, his mind already made up to duck out for a while to restock his spray bottles. Then walk around a bit to clear his mind. Yeah. The door didn’t recognise him immediately, so he stepped around a bit in a kind of solemn dance to activate the motion sensor. That did the trick. The doors parted with a faint whirr. Jim stared past them for a while. He rubbed his eyes in disbelief, then blinked back up. It was unchanged. Extending from the exit, the outside world had vanished. In its place, there was the same main room of the gym, machines lined up in silent grey rows. He quickly marched over to the other door, beginning to panic, and soon broke into a run. Door after door after door opened into the same room. The gym began to change, the walls shrinking in and the ceilings squaring off. Jim ran, and the endless sequence of rooms seemed to shift and contract, as if breathing. The maze became a fractal, looping back and converging in on itself. After what felt like years, but may have been only a minute, he fell to his knees in exhaustion. His chest heaved as he caught his breath, desperation unwinding like a coil in his heart and catching in his throat until his eyes burned. Something shifted in the corner of his field of vision, and he jumped to his feet, snapping to alertness like a rubber band under tension. Twenty paces away, there was the figure of a woman.