A Natural History of Air

A NATURAL HISTORY OF AIR
JOHN SACRAMENTO began yawning on a Tuesday; by the end of the week, the entire family was caught up in the practice. Their mouths were constantly wide open, teeth often bared, deep breathing coming from all corners of the house, great gasps of air that seemed never to be satisfied, never fully achieved: futile attempts at the impossible.
John’s major fear in life was that there might come a time when he would be unable to get enough air into his lungs. . .
(Are you happy, dear reader?)
. . . a time when the grand struggle against the inevitable would come to a head. He knew that the brain, without a constant supply of fresh air, expires; he knew also that the rest of his body, without the support of a functioning brain, likewise concludes itself: wraps things up. John could not think of a worse way to go: suffocation. Not strangling so much, not even drowning or a simple plastic bag over the head, but the slow shutting down of all of his vital systems. Nature’s way. He knew that there would come a time when, though still able to breathe, he would be unable to get the full, necessary amount of air into his anxious, waiting, hungry lungs. And he would die a horrible death. Yawning was his way of seizing what he could--while he still could. John thought about this a lot.
Joan California reacted differently than her husband. Not so much concerned with the oxygen problem, she worried more that the yawning might be contagious, that others might catch whatever it was simply by being in the same room with those already afflicted . . .
(Are you worried, dear reader?)
. . . At work, for example, she’d yawn unconsciously. Soon others in the office would begin; and then, before too long, the entire room would be nothing but a pulsing, convulsing mass of oscillating pink orifices. She tried stifling herself--suppressing the urge-–but found it impossible. Later, understanding the nature and history of air–-and herself--she would purposely yawn and then note how many others would follow her lead. She never mentioned this to John, but she was delighted with her secret nonetheless.
The two older kids dealt with the issue in a different way than either of the parents–-and differently again from themselves. Jane denied that there was yawning taking place at all. True, she saw her mom and dad open their mouths, lose themselves–-trance-like--for a quick moment while their eyes closed and the chest cavity filled and the muscles tightened–-seemingly focused on nothing but their own intake of oxygen. . .
(Are you frightened now, dear reader?)
. . . but put no importance on the act; it was just something that happened. Even when Bob, her brother, would sneak off into the bathroom--or some other private part of the house--and she’d hear behind the closed door his muffled inhalation, then the pause, followed by the relaxed out-breathing, she comforted herself in knowing that nothing spectacular was going on. Even when she herself filled her own lungs to capacity and stretched her chest out to its fullest, she believed that it was little more than the natural intake of air, the natural consequence of living.
For his own part Bob didn’t know what was taking place. . .
(Are you still there, dear reader?)
. . . only that it was something very pleasurable, and therefore something to be hidden and ashamed of. So, when he felt the urge-–the drive to yawn and experience himself more fully-–he hurried himself off to a private part of the house where he could breathe intensely and hide his guilt from the others.
The babies–-the infants–-ten of them, all less than a year old-–yawned continuously. From the moment of birth, they began their movements: stretched jaws, tightened skin across the lower face, clenched eyes, heads often thrown back in a near-quiet ecstacy, mouths open: inhalations to the climax.
One by one, the older, wiser members of the family would pass through the house . . .
(Are you ready for this, dear reader?)
. . . and observe the tiny, little bodies and their great big yawns: John would stand before them and look on in profound sorrow, sometimes a single tear rolling from an eye; Joan, when no one was looking, would separate the young ones, placing them in separate corners of the room; Bob would look at them with envy for their innocent state; and Jane would just glance at them quickly-– unbelievably--before going off to her own affairs.