Bathing

Bathing can be an ethereal experience at some times.

Two hours, I have spent two glorious hours in this beautifully crafted marble masterpiece of a building. Even underneath the sheen of steam, rising from the water and covering the large and imposing columns that surround me, I can still see the complex designs etched into them, the bright colors shining through the dense fog. I turn my head from the columns to the vastly open sky above me, while my body levitates in the warm and inviting water, my hair splays out into a angelic halo around my head. I watch the intricate rolls of steam permeate from my arms as the wisps dance a flowing waltz up toward the ballroom in the sky, when they finally dissipate. After lying in the warm embrace of the water and marveling at the clearness of the massive stretch of sky before me, I close myself off from it when I close my eyes and fill my lungs with the lavender scented air as I submerge myself deeper into the steaming drink that had suspended me earlier. Now that halo becomes a flowing veil that spreads around my body as I become the pirouetting and sashaying wisps of steam I had created earlier. My limbs seem to become weightless air and my hair flows into translucent plumes of smoke. My lungs no longer require the air above the water, for I have become air, taking new and strange forms as I please.

Yet I feel my solidness come back to me when I hear a loud banging on a door I forgot was there. My eyes fly open when the water fills my solid lungs and I burst back to the surface of the water to find a different setting than I had when I had gone under. Suddenly, it all comes flying back to me in one singular moment.

Two hours, I have spent two miserable hours in this tiny and stark white bathtub. I sit straight up with my legs bent up to my chest and my hair clinging to my face so uncomfortably it makes my face itch. I feel tired and sick as I move my heavy arms to the narrow sides of the tub and feel my legs weigh themselves down to the bottom of the porcelain blankness I sit upon. The banging on the door continues until I turn my head and  yell out that  I am occupying the small room. I turn my head back to the unchanging beige in front of my eyes and become fastly aware to the once scalding water that has now turned barely luke warm. I try and distract myself from it as I look at the rusty metallic surface of the faucet which reflects a distorted image of my oddly pale face. Even my normally vibrantly red cheeks are now ghostly pale, void of any life. I avert my eyes back to the enclosed ceiling above me while I slowly lay my body back against the cold surface of the bathtub. My eyes close when my head hits against the back of the tub as I begin to dream again of the beautiful bathhouse and my weightless body of air.

Author's Note

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