Not Your Daddy's Shower Stall

When Christian opened the door, all things seemed to fall away from him. Or perhaps it was he that was falling. The only thing he could hang onto was his memory, and, as gravity became unhinged, he felt that leaving him too.

With the ring of the alarm clock he awoke. He could see the dial dancing before him, resplendent in dim, yellow, electrical moonlight. It shifted through a hazy quarter-turn as his fingers sought out the stop lever in the rear. Finding this, he silenced the clock. It sat there, seemingly on its side, staring at him in dumb, tragic terror. Whatever warning it had for him had been taken from it.

Another door. Christian confronted it with all the confidence of one awakened from the horror of unreasonableness. He could smell the wood, and he opened it, relieved to find the earth motionless beneath him. He could see himself in the mirror, looking back at him disinterestedly. He smiled, glad to have found a friend.

He wondered if there were fish in the shower. A fish would be nice. He couldn't see any, but perhaps this was because his eyes were closed. The water was hard in his ears. If there was a fish flopping on the tiled floor, he wouldn't hear it. By the time he could open his eyes it would be gone, so he opened them.

The fish were green and blue, and red. They all had golden accents, like glitter on a birthday card. They swam up to him and talked to him, very earnestly. They were telling him about their families. Christian tried to talk back to them, but his mouth filled with water when he opened it. He stooped to show the fish the drain. He helped them down through it before he opened the door and stepped out.

He closed the door and turned, then turned back, remembering that the shower was still running. His fingers curled about the door handle, and he gave a sharp pull. Nothing happened. He pulled harder, then harder still. The doorframe seemed part of the house, no longer a door. It seemed to be an unbroken wall of glass and tile, extending all around him, over him and under him as if he were suspended in its own sea, glazed and translucent, moving through him and around him, taking him within its substance, making him part of it and then slowly disgorging him on the other side.

A fish looked up at him from the drain, its eyes wide, its mouth a pleading, questioning oval. He couldn't make out the fish's color.