Extension of Mind

Sitting on the edge of her bed, Sara stares blankly at her phone. Facebook stares back at her, filled with all of her hundreds of "friends" pictures and statuses. She rolls her eyes, tosses her phone on the floor, and falls back on the bed, her black hair sprawling out behind her. She sighs as she stares at the ceiling and thinks about her own life. Up until this point, she hadn't had the time to give it much thought, but looking at the fake lives that her friends post on their social networks, she can't help but find herself contemplating her direction and what she has to show for her 25 years on this planet. Her small, one bedroom apartment filled with hand-me-down furniture, a car that is almost as old as she is, and a crappy job as a barista at a coffee shop in the mall. She grabs a pillow from behind her head and slams it on her face and sighs deeply, trying to force the thoughts out of her head.  

She removes the pillow from her face and let her eyes begin to gaze back and forth at the stippled pattern on the ceiling, a bland white tinged with orange by a floor lamp in the corner. A small swathe of the pattern seemed irregular to her. Most of it swirled in slow lazy circles and figure eights, but this spot must have been a patch where a fan or perhaps an overhead light had been. She stared at it like she often did with clouds, searching for a familiar shape. She cocked her head slightly to the left to take on a different angle. Slowly, she thought she could make out a possible scuba diver or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. She stared on and imagined it becoming clearer. She focused harder and the image seemed to pop out at her. Sara began to add color to the picture, drawing it out as she gazed over the bumpy landscape. She added green for the face, a lighter green on the cheeks, orange for the headband, and finally a black for the eyes. She smiled at the Michelangelo staring back at her from her bedroom ceiling.  

Her phone vibrated. Sighing, Sara sat up and retrieved it from the pile of laundry where it was haphazardly thrown. It was a text from her coworker Tara.

What could you possibly want?, she thought, I just left you an hour ago. She swiped the screen and retrieved the message: go out 2nite?

Sara considered the idea momentarily. After all, it was Friday night, she was single, and she had nothing better to do. She shrugged and typed out her agreement. Staring at the blinking cursor, she suddenly felt as if she would rather not. She hadn't showered, and the idea of a bubble bath entered her mind. That would feel better than a club with every would-be Romeo itching to "go back to his place". She deleted it and paused briefly before sending Tara her excuse. Sara knew she wouldn't take no for an answer so she turned off her phone before throwing it across the room again.

She hated that thing.  

Frustrated, she flopped back against the soft bed, her eyes meeting again with Michelangelo. To her surprise, she found it immediately, in full color detail just as she had left it. She rubbed her eyes in disbelief. When she opened them again, the cartoonish face had vanished. She sat up in bed and rested her elbows on her knees momentarily with the thought that she might be going a little loopy in the head before getting up to draw her bath.  

Steam rose in cottony billows from her bathtub while she lit candles and placed them around the edges of it. The tub was an oversized oval with a seat molded into one end that was perfect for reclining. By all accounts this bathtub was her favorite part of her apartment. It was here that she often found herself reading, singing, and jamming to music while she shaved her legs, air guitaring with them while she did so. Her favorite part of it though, was that it is here where she felt true solace from the real world. Her phone was often in the other room, the book she is reading whisking her off to a new world, and the ever relaxing lapping of warm water on her body; bliss! 

After placing her candles, Sara walked into her bedroom to disrobe and retrieve her reading material for the evening. She undressed and grabbed the nearest book then quickly shut the blinds, realizing too late that she had left them open for the entire world to see her. Her cheeks flushed with imagined embarrassment at who may have caught a glimpse before she ran toward her bathroom. Just as she reached the door of her bedroom though, the thought of Michelangelo on her ceiling came unbidden to her. She glanced upwards, half expecting her amphibious friend to be looking back at her but found nothing. Satisfied that she was not crazy, she proceeded to the warming embrace of her bath. 

Sara stepped into the bathtub and gracefully slid beneath the bubbly water. She inhaled a deep breath of steamy lavender, accented by the jasmine candles burning about her. She allowed herself a moment of soothing relaxation before drying her hands on a nearby towel and taking her book from the back of the toilet. She cracked it open and began to read.

The red sun balances on the highest ramparts of the mountains, and in its waning light, the foothills appear to be ablaze. A cool breeze blows down out of the sun and fans through the tall dry grass, which streams like waves of golden fire along the slopes toward the rich and shadowed valley.

Sara looked up from her book and tried to imagine the place the writer had described. On the wall at the base of her tub just beyond her feet, she imagined mountains as a silhouette, the sun perched precariously upon the summit of the highest peak. She envisioned those foothills as a rolling landscape of gold and reddened earth with grassy fires cascading into a darkened valley. She closed her eyes and felt the breeze as it licked softly at the skin that was not submersed in the water. She mused at her mental artwork and continued to read. 

An hour had passed and the candles started to flicker and die before she allowed herself to part with the book. The story was an intense thriller that had grabbed her from the very opening chapter. She reluctantly closed the book and set it aside. Submersing herself to her nose, she peered at the deep blue toenails sticking out of the water. They were a stark contrast to the reddish- 

Alarmed, Sara sat straight up in the tub, the water violently sloshing about. She was staring face to face with the picture she had mentally crafted over an hour ago. Not a single detail had changed; all the colors were as vibrant as they had been at the time of its creation. Gone was the bland white wall characteristic of the rest of her bathroom. She again rubbed her eyes in disbelief, yet this time should couldn't help but think that something strange was occurring. This was twice in one night. When she opened them again, the picture remained. She reached a shaky dripping finger out to it and wiped at its surface. She drew a ribbon of white horizontally across the painting and inspected her finger. No ink or paint dribbled from it, though it seemed to be imprinted with all the same colors as the painting. She dipped it in the water and rubbed at it, attempting to erase the coloring from her skin.

It didn't budge.

She raised her finger from the water and dabbed it on the wall beside her. A fingerprinted dot of color remained where she had pressed it. 

"I am losing my goddamned mind," she said aloud.  

Frantically, Sara grabbed a washcloth and began to scrub at the painting on the wall. Each swab of the cloth carried with it large portions of the vibrant canvas leaving only the bare white beneath. Soon there was nothing left of the mural and she sat back hesitantly, perplexed as to what had just occurred. She stared at the blank wall for another minute before releasing her art combating washcloth to float aimlessly about the bath. 

A chill ran through Sara's body and gooseflesh prickled at her skin. The water had become cold. Sara looked at the clock on the wall in the hallway. Ten o'clock. On edge and feeling robbed of her nightly repose, she decided to refresh her bath water and kick back for another chapter or two of her book.

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