A One Sentence Story About The Bathroom

By


When you tear out your hair in clumps starting from the back of your head in slow calculated movements you realize how much pain is a reminder of who you are that your survival in this world all depends on your conscious or unconscious attempts to avoid this pain that you embrace yet hold distant from you as if it were a filthy dying creature and you blink back tears of either joy or horror because you can’t stop the blood flowing freely from the back of your head because some of your scalp has come off too and you mouth something off into the air but no one is there to witness it and you feel nothing but soreness and an appreciation for the bleakness within you and you notice the air is heavy and warm on your skin and you realize as you hold your hair tightly in your hands that the blood from your head is soaking your grey t-­shirt and weighing your shoulders down and you understand that the weight on your shoulders have increased even if minutely and you laugh in amusement at the small irony and you can’t help yourself and you kneel down and release the hair from your hands and grab your temples and let out a loud laugh as blood still trickles down from the back of your head and perhaps it is because you are losing blood at a rapid pace that you begin to feel faint with each laugh and perhaps it is because you have realized how imminent death is in life that you grab that picture of you and her and hold it to your chest and mutter some words that you have regretted saying before in the past because she had thrown those words back at you with venom and you felt nothing but cold hatred but now all those feelings are quelled for those black spots you see in front of you signals the beginning of the failure of your body to protect your already fragile body from foreign intruders and you know that this is the first stage towards the end of this life in this dimension in this space and that to you at this very moment means nothing because all you want is to relive that moment when the two of you went upstate to a farm to pick apples and ended up getting lost and having lunch at a diner you two never went back to but talked about doing every weekend and between those black spots and the fog all you see is her face beaming down at you as if she is happy at your demise and you feel a surge of anger throughout your pain and your response to her delight is your feeling that you must debase yourself and you pull at your ears as hard as your arms let you and you feel an explosion within your head and a sudden silence surrounds you and you let out a scream that you cannot hear for the first time in your life and you weep in regret and surprise and claw at the side of your face and feel your skin tear under your fingernails and you can taste the metallic tang of your blood on your tongue and you feel a numbness inside like you have felt before like you have felt when you two broke up and you realize this feels much more different because you are on your knees chipping away at the foundation of your life and this feels pure and genuine than the time you cried about the first time you slept alone in sixteen years and drank half a bottle of brandy by yourself but life is not what it used to be and you understand that there is nothing else for you to live for and that there is nothing else left for you in this world but something holds you back from complete destruction and you are on the floor left kneeling as your hands are motionless by your side and your chest subtly moving and your t-­shirt stained mahogany and heavy and your eyes are closed and you are immersed in the physical pain you have caused yourself but you know that you cannot cleanse yourself of the emotional pain no matter how much you inflict superficial pain and as you listen for the sound that you know will never hear and as you bite your tongue to keep your thoughts at bay and as you take that breath that may be your last and as you remember a time when you two drank champagne at the first new year together and at the first Christmas together and the first time you two drove out to Nantucket for a family thanksgiving and the first time you two sat on the couch to watch a food channel marathon and the first time you two slept together and the first time you two went to the beach and the first time you two went on a date and the time you two met for the first time and as you claw at your eyes in an attempt to remove the images from that head of yours a light flashes within your mind and blinds you from the inside out and you collapse face first on to the bedroom floor and the last thing you see is a picture of you and her holding a baby that was never to be born.