Girl In The Bathtub, Years Ago Now

Slowly she climbs the wooden steps up to the back porch, then seems to gather her last reserves of energy to burst through the door into the kitchen, exalting in sweat.  She doesn't move for a minute or two except to breathe.  She scans the room.  It is a small old white kitchen, with black borders on all the cabinets, and an unremovable layer of grime on the walls.  There are old notes on the fridge, a microwave balanced on a crooked little end table, plants on the windowsill.  There are remnants of someone's dinner on the counter, and shoes everywhere.  She begins to make a pot of tea.
She is standing watching the blue flames underneath the kettle, crawling to the edge and spilling up the sides when something occurs to her and she marches suddenly into the bedroom.  Clothes are strewn across the bed and floor and she steps on them with dirty sneakers in her haste to collect all the candles in the room.  She finds eight, and some incense, and then sees a carton of bath salts on the back of a shelf that have been there waiting for this day for maybe a year and a half.  When she reaches for it the bottom gives out and tiny orange crystals pour out and scatter across the carpet.  Cursing quietly, she kneels down to gather them in her hands, bringing a palmful straight to the bathroom and tossing them in the empty bathtub.  She begins setting out and lighting candles, meticulously spreading them evenly around the perimeter of the room.  The incense she places by the sink, then on the shelf above the toilet paper, then finally on the windowsill.  She hangs a towel on the door, then hears the charging train whistle sound the old kettle makes when the water's boiled and returns to pour the tea.  She undresses hurriedly in the kitchen while it steeps.  Her skin is red and clammy from the ride home, her clothes damp with sweat.  She tosses them unceremoniously onto her bed from the doorway then stands at the dresser tying her hair up.  She sees the pack of cigarettes there and hesitates for a moment, then slowly and deliberately she takes them into the bathroom and places them on the toilet seat, next to the lighter.  She locks the door, turns off the light, and stands there naked, sipping tea and watching the water run.  When the tub is full she turns off the taps and begins a gradual, incremental descent into the bath.

In this house a silence like this one is rare and she wonders where everyone is.  Flickering candlelight exaggerates the shadows of goosebumps on her legs and arms.  It is dark in this small room but through the open window she can see it is still light out, there is maybe an hour or so left.  She moves slightly and the sound of the water reminds her of something from a long time ago that she can't quite place.  She leans back dejectedly, her head cocked to one side against the cool tile.  She reaches slowly for the pack of smokes and watches steam rising from the shining skin of her arm and water dripping from the tips of her fingers and feels like a strange animal, something dredged out of a swamp and unaccustomed to society.  The air is moving less and less.  It is pliable now, small motions leave indents in it.  She lights a cigarette.  The hiss and crackle are soothing sounds in the stillness and humidity of this room.  She exhales a long stream of smoke through the rising steam towards her feet, then rests the dart lightly on her lower lip so as not to soak it through.  The breeze coming in is just reaching the right side of her face and she begins to feel extraordinarily alone.  It is strange to her that this feeling should be so tangible, she cannot know this now but it will not leave her for years to come.  She is not crying, she can't remember right now what crying feels like.  Smoke fills her head, and her limbs grow steadily heavier.  To keep from drowning she attempts to count by feel the bath salts underneath her.  She is so far away from everything in here.  She can't remember her intent, the brass tacks.  She can't remember anything.  There is only the purity and holiness of smoking in the bath.  Sometimes she ashes out the window, sometimes right into the water.  When the cigarette burns out, she wants to be asleep.  Still no one is home.