The Bath
I step into the room and walk across the black and white checkered tile floor to the bathtub. After drawing aside the white unadorned shower curtain, I stop the drain and run the faucet. It will take a while for the tub to fill and so I leave the room, closing the door behind me. Then I return to the screen, to scroll the feed, send a few messages back and forth with online friends, while I wait. Sometimes I leave replies for people whom I feel I know, even as I know I don’t. It’s a one-sided relationship—Lord knows I know that—and I avoid saying anything too personal; yes, I’ve read their posts for some years, even know intimate details of their lives, but they can hardly say the same of me and will in likelihood not even respond. That’s the nature of the game; I don’t dwell on it.
I return to the bathroom and set a clean pair of socks aside on the countertop for later. A bathrobe will suffice otherwise—I’ll change clothes in the bedroom—but I don’t want to walk back barefoot. There’s already a towel waiting to be used. Then I turn off the tap and check the bathwater. I’ve carelessly run it too hot. So I will have to wait again it seems. I go back to the other room and to the screen, to scroll again, to read, reply, and on occasion receive a reply in turn. Back to the people that I both know and do not know—to the fake life of online community.
The water has cooled down enough now to take a bath and so I climb in to the eggshell acrylic tub and lie back. I lie there, just lie there, a while, fixing my eyes on the glossy stark white subway tiles on the wall surrounding. Nothing fancy—a plain pattern with simple white grout. It’s not that I’m staring at the tiles; in fact, I almost don’t even notice them. I look as though I’m looking through them. As though I’m staring through the walls at something I know not what. But no, I’ve fixed my gaze on nothing; I’m merely looking for looking sake.
I suddenly realize I am tired.
I hadn’t been all that tired, or hadn’t thought I was tired, before I drew a bath and sat down in the tub. Now it’s become an inescapable feeling and yet I think it’ll soon pass; I would prefer to ignore it at least if that's possible. Continuing to stare off into nothing, I lie still in the water. The plain white tiled walls grow distant and insignificant, like the background of a picture focused on some key subject—but here there is no crystal foreground. Everything is fading and losing its focus. A shadow begins to pass over my eyes.
My body jerks, a spasm in the muscles of my right side. A sensation like that of a fall, yet I remain where I was and have been. With that, all those fading things that fell from my sight return to their usual clarity and my eyes’ focus is restored. I am a little more awake now. A little. My attention is drawn, for no particular reason, to the shower head up on the wall. There is nothing of note about it; it’s a plain stainless steel shower head, generic and nondescript. Still I find myself fixated, like I expect something about it to suddenly shift and change, but I don't. So I stare at it, once more as though I am looking through it and beyond it. I stare at it in anticipation of no anticipation; and it is not long before it too, like the tiles before it, begins to drift into a blur.
I think I am falling asleep. I can feel myself disappearing from the world. Shadow has begun to overwhelm and all around me is becoming a haze. The eggshell acrylic bathtub, the plain glossy subway tiles on the wall, the simple stainless steel of the shower head—I am no longer consciously aware of them, they have no meaningful existence, and in a moment I will not see them at all. Unawares, the nothing is passing over and taking hold of me. Light dissipates in my eyes and the clear and bright become murky and forgotten. I forget everything and all passes into insignificance. There’s no fear in this; there is no struggle. After all, it is merely sleep.
My body goes limp and my head slips beneath the water.