Drips

She could hear the bubbles fizzing into nothingness, the clockwork drip of the leaking tap. Sticking her left big toe up into the spout, the drip seemed momentarily to stop, but soon started again, this time off her heel. Her head throbbed exactly as she liked it, while the mist gently wafting around the ceiling formed a spiral and dropped – tiny particles that she could see separate but that were too wispy to catch.

Putting her hand up to grab them simply threw them off their path and whipped them back up to the ceiling again, a loose and expedient alignment. She left her hand in her gaze, observing her fingers, each wrinkling in, trying to touch itself. The candle gave off enough light to see them fairly well, its steady orange glow occasionally flickering, sending her shadow dancing over the tiles.

The cd was playing through for the second time and she drifted along to the delicious slow-burning tension of her favourite Berg string quartet. It took her back to a time she now recalled as though someone else’s story, a paperback left behind on a park bench, revealing a tale she had assumed like castoff, ill-fitting clothes – a man’s overcoat worn in quiet defiance of something even the wearer never quite understood.

Planting her feet flat on the bottom of the bath, she let her weight shift into her hips and pull her under. The music dropped out but silence did not come. The drip was now inside her head. Plopping with the metallic ring water has when heard from within. Gently blowing air out her nose, she felt the bubbles roll up under her cheekbones and over her temples. The sensation was pleasant but shortlived.

As her breath passed out, her stomach dropped and she slid deeper, the first sense of calm for the day passing over.