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After-hours Bathtub Examen


A bathtub that fills with hot water sits on the other side of the wall below you. Enter it, then make a choice. The water flows strong, so it appears there is not much time. Do you slip into the bathtub, submerging the numbness of another day, one marked by a commute littered with the bodies of strangers? Do vague images of dozens or hundreds of those animated ghosts become lost in the blur of doldrums, the bulk of which have yet to happen? Do you exhale with relief as the hot water, made silky with raw oil, consumes before passing a few minutes to quietly eradicate hours that have been hollowed of feeling and emotional depth (which are your birthrights)? Or, do you sink to the bottom, hand over the keys, and sooner die?
from 24 April, 2020

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