The Bathroom
Opening the door, with a creak of the hinges and a rush of cool air, Charlie is brought back 30 years. The bathroom that, when she was younger, was in and out of in five minutes flat if she could help it. The shower, a curved pane of retro glass, a wall fully enclosing the small corner that the fixture took up. The room itself was tiny and modestly adorned. The mirror behind the sink split in half, made to open up and house all the objects the counters could not fit. The bathroom hasn’t changed a bit.
When she was younger, Charlie used to see ghosts in this bathroom. This small space was actually the first place she realized that the lives of those that came before her happened to overlap with hers. It was this bathroom that, all these years later, she so longed to come back to.
30 years ago it was the last place she wanted to be. At the end of a long, dark hallway, with corners obscured from view by the way the light bounced around the surfaces, Charlie always felt like she was being watched. Now, looking in the mirror, she feels as if she had just been feeling her own presence all these years later. That, somehow she knew she would come back to this exact spot.
Charlie marvels at the current owners’ choices of renovation. That, of all things in this house, they hadn’t decided to fix this arguably disgusting bathroom. Although this is the first thing she would change if she were to have bought the house with no prior attachment, Charlie is happy about the oversight by the owners.
With a flick of the light switch next to the door, Charlie floods the small bathroom with darkness— this time okay with it. Taking deep breaths in and out, Charlie thinks about what it means to be back in this space, trying to reason with herself that in being here she was healing something in herself. Cleansing herself.
As she mulls over that sentiment, she can’t help but feel as if there is something else in the room with her — someone else. Unable to open her eyes, Charlie begins to hear the faucet running, recognizing the violent splash into the basin that always scared her when she was younger. Glued to that exact spot, her eyes uncomprehendingly paralyzed, Charlie knows that when she opens them she will no longer see herself in the mirror.
When she finally opens them, Charlie is shocked at what she finds.