Shower Drip Rallentandos

Everything portrayed in this story is fiction.

CW: body horror

-----

The businessman gets home after work. It's been a long day around lots of different people. Now no one's around. No one hears him. No one smells him, either. He stinks. He knows it. His stomach rumbles. That can wait. He feels gross. He needs a shower.

He walks to the bathroom, and it stretches out forever in the darkness. When he flicks the wall switch and the overhead light blinks awake with a droning hum, the room stretches only as far as his arms might in any direction. He discards his tie, his stiff collared shirt with loose buttons, his belt that never fits right, his once-shiny shoes that flatten his soles, his pants that never un-wrinkle.

The man yawns as he stretches his arm across himself, grabbing the curtain and yanking it to the side. He sees the inside of the shower. The patterned floor is gray from dirt and grime. Hair from days ago clumps along the edges and corners. The soap-caked drain pops open, white and chalky. He makes a note to himself to clean all of this up over the weekend.

He reaches towards the wall and turns the shower handle. He hears a bubbling sound. No water comes out. He reaches up to grab the shower head, tilts it facing down. The water falls out all at once in a sheet. Then nothing. With another tap of the tubing and a rumble from deep inside the wall, the shower sputters into a stream falling across the tiles. A few drops touch the man's hand before he yanks it away. Freezing pain on his knuckles. While the water warms up, he removes his clothes.

The water isn't so cold now, so he steps in. He lets his feet get wet first before bracing and taking another step further into the stream. It hits his stomach, then his chest and his shoulders. He flinches back at the chill.

A deep breath in - and - out.

Then he ducks his head under the water.

He feels the stinging all across his scalp as he scrambles for the shampoo bottle. He has to go quickly. Reaching out his hand for the bottle in the corner. His hand finds it and the cap. He tips the bottle, squirting whatever he can feel in his hands as quick as he can before throwing the bottle somewhere resembling where he got it from.

The man braces himself again, head and forehead full of shampoo, to feel the freezing cold again. He is not quick enough. He blinks. A bubble of shampoo drips down from his sudsy hair, tracing the bangs, following the eyelashes across and away before collapsing down into his blinking eyes.

First, he flinches. Screaming follows after. The stinging covers across his face and into his head. His back collides into the wall. The water falls down. The water numbs everything except the pain. He grabs at his face, scraping, itching, wiping, anything to get the soap out of his eyes.

He hears the spraying water. He falls into the stream again. He feels his porcelain heartbeat. It hammers away at all his dirty, rough against his skin. The room spins around him.

He tilts his head to get water anywhere close to his face. The tips of his fingers dig into forehead and cheek, scraping at any remaining soap suds. He open his mouth to catch his breath. Soap falls across his tongue, and he gags.

Finally, he regains his balance, away from the water, away from the soap, only against the wall.

A deep breath in - and - out.

He feels the bubbles drip off his skin. And then an even colder, lighter sensation all across him.

Slowly, tenderly, carefully, he opens his eyes again. He lifts his hands back up to his face, stretched open. Dripping wet, like everything else. A drop of water falls down from the tip of his index finger towards his palm.

This drop isn’t clear. It isn’t soapy. It is the color of his skin. It slides and scrapes down. It peels in sharp slices down, along until only red remains on his finger.

The dripping body doesn't stop.

He screams. It doesn't matter. It's so cold. He can barely move. The skin along each of his fingers drips off. One hand, then the other. He sees the muscles, then watches as they snap with each falling drop of water. The bones behind them whittle away.

The toes go next. Feet and ankles melt, bones along with them. Knees condense, too. Hair. Stretchy skin. He doesn't even have enough time to fall. A body turns to water, down the drain.