dogwood drought

Shower

The water is hot. So hot that he can almost imagine it red, raining down from the faucet like TV lava. Sizzling. It turns his skin red, but only after a while. At first it's just white. Not white, pink. Always pink. He lets the lava wash over him and his thoughts are white-noise (white, not pink). Music lifts from his phone, balanced precariously on the bathtub's lip. It's not his favorite song but it feels like his not-thoughts at that moment. The heat washes over his ankle, alerting him of a bug-bite. Almost pain, almost pleasure, all annoying.

So many bug-bites. Now his skin is red. Not lava red but sunburn red. Soft red–natural. It's almost visible, the heat in the air. It's choking and relieving in equal measure. Fills his head with hot air. He wonders idly if his head might pop off and drift away like a hot-air balloon if he leaves it too long. The music continues. He smiles. It's the good part of the song. It only takes minutes for the water to start feeling less like a shower and more like a pot. Him the lobster, sitting innocent. Red, firetruck red, not sunburn red. He imagines it wouldn't be so bad anyway. And then he can't imagine much at all. He's lightheaded, for real this time. Hot-air balloon headed maybe. He leans against the wall. He catches a whiff of something. Not good, not bad, just a smell.

Finally, he moves forward, fluid. Twists the handle. The water remains hot. But not anywhere near lava hot. His head empties of hot-air. Shit. He used body-wash as shampoo. He doesn't know the difference between them but imagines his hair ruined anyway, sticking stiff and dry like straw from a scarecrow's brain. He doesn't feel helpless about it all, but he could. If he cared more about his hair maybe he would. But he doesn't.

There's no more hot-air but his head isn't empty. Thoughts start to pile up. Like there's a bricklayer in his scarecrow brain laying bricks, building a wall. Sometimes walls are good. They keep out things you don't want and keep in things you do. This is a bad wall, keeping in bad things. The bad things are a ball, bouncing back and forth. Wall to floor to wall. Over and over and over and over and...

Don't look down. Everything is fine as long as you don't look down. He washes out the body-wash and gives up. Presses down the knob and the water silences. It's hard to process noise when it exists. It's only after the noise leaves that its presence is remembered. Still, there's no such thing as silence. The water glug glugs from the tap erroneously. The plastic curtain shffs as it's moved aside and his feet thp as they hit the mat, one after the other.

He dries. He doesn't look down. There's the plink of piano keys. Music. He'd forgotten it. It sounds faint, as though in another dimension. He pulls on his pants. Pink. But only a little, stripes. Bordered graciously with thick, dark black. Black. He is in another dimension. His dimension is small, minuscule even. Existing only in this bathroom. Two doors, a floor, two lights, a bath. Small. But safe. What about those two doors. Doors are doorways, it's in the name. Obvious. Doorways are ways, yes. But where to. What lies beyond a dimension? Black. Black isn't nothing. He knows that. He thinks he knows that. There is something. That something is behind two doors. That something is black. Black is empty. Supposedly. Empty is good but unsure. Empty doesn't really exist after all. He knows that. He knows that. Empty exists to be filled.

Sometimes filling is good. Anything can be good. Anything can be filling. Science. Piano again. Sometimes filling is Bulgarian creme, always white, never pink. Sometimes filling is walls, walls, walls, crowding out noise and reds and scarecrows. But which is it. I can press my ear to the door but I know what I'll hear. I'll hear nothing. Or something.

It's all too much information. I look around, I see. I hold my breath, I hear. I take two steps, I reach. Cold metal, squeal.