The Next Day

I have done little but sleep for the past few days. All-Saints-Day found me naked in the tub, the water barely pooled up in the bottom. The sun was streaming through the window, washing everything in dusky rose and peach. I don't know what time I got home from the nightmare of my Halloween night, but I must've been asleep for nearly 16 hours.

The most painful thing I've ever done in my life was to stand up from that tub. Lifting my 100 pound arms up to grasp the porcelein rim, I felt my shoulders pulling, stretching, screaming in protest. As I began to heave the skin bag of sticks and boulders that used to be my body out of the tub, my arms started trembling. The more weight I transferred to the tub walls, the stronger my arms shook. Eventually, my arms gave out and I collapsed; a yelp escaped from deep within my lungs.

Try after try found me in different positions on the bottom of the clawfoot. After the tenth or twentieth try, I was laying facedown and I was able to get my knees under me so I could at least kneel. From this position, all I could see was a giant pink smear over the entire surface of the tub. Waves and dogs, wisps and streaks, I sat there seeing images in the layer of blood I spread over everything. My scabs from the night before must have softened up in my 16 hour siesta and now I was bleeding.

Feeling feint, I finally managed to struggle to my feet. I got out and went back to the kitchen to make myself a sandwich and check my messages. 72. I had 72 messages and I didn't even try listening to them. I called up work, told them that I won't be in for a few days. I had to listen to how the police had come by, my friends had come by, even my mom. I listened then told them that I won't be in at all this week and I will call them if I won't be in next.

Then I laid down on my sofa and passed out.