Idea

A pale afternoon.

There’s an uncanny calm on the waters as I gripe internally about the length of this bath tub: it’s either shoulders out or knees up. Why the fuck even bother with it? It’s just a shower you can trip your way out of. For now, I’ll go with the exposed knees and wait for the water to turn cold around me.

I try to drift to sleep, but if you’ve ever tried that you’ll know it doesn’t work. End up just agitated with your own inability to do something so simple.

There’s so much to dislike--no fuck it--hate about this tiny room. The too-small tub, the pervasive stink of chemical cleaners and the litterbox, the mildewed ceiling, the used and useless. You can’t even close your eyes and think it away, it’s coming through your nose. And that interpretive jazz band fucking with your ears too. You almost miss the squealing insects.

Maybe it’s OK. Maybe this is how to wash. To cleanse. A tiny little plastic beach of ones own. Add a waterlogged cheap paperback and maybe this is it. All of it.

But doors shouldn’t open of their own accord. Especially not doors removed years earlier to “give a sense of space to the place.” But I can see it now. Opening. Probably a metaphor of some type. The door opens. The bath waters turns colder around me. And she says (of course it’s a she, I’m naked in a bath tub, you think it’s going to be a guy?) “Hey, Dimmer!”