I crawled slowly out of bed. It had taken me numerous hours to unclench my body and slink out of bed. But I did it. I floated down the hallway as quiet as the steam seeping from the bathroom door. It's hot pervasive intrusion into my room was what had woken me up. Its fingers beckoning me to follow. At first I tried to ignore its hasty calls, but then the steam started to lick my face. It covered me until I could not breathe. I had to get up. The yellow light creeping out of the cracks of the bathroom door at the end of the long hall, was accompanied by the dull monotonous buzzing of the fan. Once I finally reached the door, I sat next to it. I waited. I could only hear the fan. I turned the knob and pushed the door open slowly. Then I saw her.
Strands of yellow hazy lights bounce upon her face. The white walls were determined to make her into an opaque ghost. She always wanted to paint them a silvery blue. Her face was almost imperceptible but I know she smiled. Not her beautiful grin that won hearts, but a serene, soft smile I hadn't seen in a long while. Her once pink lips were curved softly. Her midnight black hair wet with the steam pervading the bathroom air clung to her face--framing her heart shaped head. The way she laid upon the floor revealed her slight widow's peak which had made it impossible for her to ever part her hair down the middle. But even without the middle part she looked like Morticia Addams, but prettier. Less death-like. She was at peace. But I had just started a war within myself.
She left me that night as a five-year-old stranger. A wanderer more lost than the Isrealites. I couldn't leave her side. I turned off the water. Turned off the fan. Turned off the light. I laid down next to her slowly cooling body and tucked my head into her arm. The steam quickly left and we were alone as the damp cool air overcame us, as did our separate reveries. Hers more fantastic and fatal than mine. No stars to accompany us, or moon to oversee. Just the black damp bathroom air, that left no traces of either of us.
