(Fiction)

It’s wrong. It feels all wrong, like I accidentally slipped on somebody else’s shoes. Like my skin was tailored for a different body, rubbing in all the wrong spots, hugging across my shoulders. Irritating. Bone deep agitation. I look down at the water running down my bare legs, the soap between my toes, the blood that isn’t there, but would be if my nails were long enough. They’re never long enough. I could never peel this rind away. It traps me and crushes me and chokes me like the steamy heat that has filled my tiny bathroom. I know I’m sweating, despite the water on my skin.

My shower is broken. It knows only one temperature, and that is one drop colder than scalding. My bathroom could be a coffin if I were two hundred pounds heavier. The door to this room is the only one in the damned house that could stop a draft. I hate this room. It’s as though hell is reaching out, forming a portal in my moldy bathroom to unleash the demons that rend my flesh the way I do in my imagination.

I want to scream. I want to sob. Sob until my lungs squeeze and stick, collapsed, unmoving. Its too hot to scream, or sob. It is all I can do to breathe. The air is heavy.

Why don’t I leave this place? Behind the old oaken door, behind that ancient bronze knob, I know lies cool relief. What is this door doing here? The rest of the house is cheap, flimsy, rotting, splintering. The doorknob to my bedroom is plastic. The doorknob to the side of the house is missing. The front door is hollow, and I’m sure I could put my fist through it if ever I felt so inclined.

I never do.

The crusty mirror is beading with condensation, the water mixing with the years and years of shit and grime that has accumulated there. I cannot see my face, only the hazed outline of my naked, boiled-red body.

My hand grasps the heavy, well worn knob. I breathe once more the air, thick as water, and surely drowning me. It will still be wrong out there, but with mildew instead of mold, and with clothes on top of the flesh that I’m sure hates me.