Hello!
Summer’s here, so we’re all hot and sweaty. Time for a bath in this week’s dark flash fiction.
Bring your rubber ducky.
You don’t want to be alone.
No matter how I scrubbed my flesh, I couldn’t get the smell off. The steam from the hot water still pouring into the bath saturated my lungs. My red skin glowed in it.
The roar of the water almost hid the sound of someone knocking on the bathroom door.
It was a soft knock, when it came again, like a timid house guest who wanted to know if they could brush their teeth after their host seemed to have forgotten they were there.
That had happened to me once. Years ago, when there were still people I could visit.
But there wasn’t—wasn’t ever—anyone else in my house.
I lived alone. That was the problem.
When the knock came again, it sounded so familiar that I was tempted to answer. I knew that knock, and it would have been a relief to pretend I had company.
But who would want my company?
I said nothing, but turned off the water to better hear what they might do next.
Leather shoes squeaked in the hallway as they shifted their weight. This must be what it was like to have someone. You recognised them by the sound of their shoes.
But it only sounded familiar to me, because my own shoes squeaked. I had never worked out how to buy shoes which would carry me quietly and confidently down the busy streets, like you see in the ads. My shoes squeaked like mice, drawing attention to the fact that I hurried along alone.
They knocked again. Exactly the way I knocked whenever I came to a closed door, hopeful but knowing I wasn’t welcome.
I had been a lonely child, but it wasn’t until my parents died that I realised how bad it had become. Loneliness had seeped into my pores and marked me out. No matter how hard I scrubbed, I could never get its stink off my skin.
All those skin cells over the years. All the loneliness. Washed down the drain to… where?
The knock came again, needy, the knuckles almost caressing the door in an attempt to ingratiate themselves. Familiar. Because only one person would come back to me for company.
Also this week, after two great EPs, Orochen have released their debut album! If you haven’t heard them before then now is the time to jump onboard the post-something/something-folk/metal bandwagon. It’s packed full of gloomy, moody bangers. Perfect for your next bath.
