Sentinel

by Christopher Linforth

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They opened the Life Center a day early. Silver-haired women emerged from the rear of the building in plain grey tracksuits. They jogged over to the stand of jacaranda trees and stood in a line, eyes to the dawn sky. A computerised male voice erupted from the Life Center’s loudspeakers: begin. The women started a calisthenic routine. Their limber bodies jerked up and around. They completed fantastical exercises: burpees and headstands and planches. I called out to them from my position on the stone pillar, near the entrance. The women rose, arms by their sides. Their grey faces looked my way. I wasn’t meant to see. I begged the women to lie down and sleep. They remained static, so I tried again in a deeper voice: sleep. The women gathered in the shade of a single tree,  a circle of eyes closing. I guarded them for as long as I could until the men came to take them back inside.