Personal Hygiene

“Just get in the tub.”
“Why?”
“I’ll give you mustardcakes.”
“What the hell are mustardcakes?”
It wasn’t a normal looking tub. It was constructed of the finest porcelain, the doorman said. It was in one of those marble bathrooms you don’t feel you belong in. Yet the rest of the apartment was ordinarily drab; mundane, to say the least.
“They say if you get in the tub just once and soak in the water you’ll never be dirty again.”
“Ever?”
“That’s right,” the doorman winks, smiling viciously.
The man considered that once in awhile he liked the feeling of being dirty. What if he wanted to be dirty again?
“It’s not like anyone would want to be dirty,” the doorman reassured him, reading his mind.
There were no towels in the bathroom.
There was a hole in the ceiling that ascended into penumbra. It was a tunnel of some sort, the kind a rat or some other rodent would burrow themselves in.
Did rats even burrow themselves? the man thought.
“Just get in the tub, there’s nothing to be afraid of.” The doorman’s constant reassuring instilled fear in the man. It was as if the doorman was convincing the man to kill himself.
“Look, I don’t think this is such a good idea,” the man says, cowering to the doorman’s devouring smile. His smile was devoid of anything even close to resembling human. It seemed to fill the entire bathroom. The man felt he was being eaten alive by the smile.
“I’m not going to get into the tub,” the man says firmly, nudging past the doorman, trying to squeeze himself through to the entrance of the bathroom.
“I’m giving you one last chance to get into the tub,” the doorman says wholesomely. He stomps his foot on the ground, which seems completely incongruous with the largeness of his smile.
“Excuse me? I didn’t know I even had chances, let alone do I want one.”
The doorman stomps on the floor again.
“I have an appointment to make; would you please,” he rolls his eyes, “I beg of you, let me pass?”
“I’m afraid that is not an option.”
“Do you have any concept of…law, moral, ethics; the former in particular?”
“Only the clean know of what you spout. The dirty mesh them altogether until they all contradict themselves into one.”
“Regardless, if you do not let me pass, either by force or whatever other absurd intentions you have, I’m afraid that as soon as I leave here I shall report you to the police.”
“As I am already clean, my olfactory senses are beyond preternatural; I can smell your crimes, your sins, your regrets, and lastly, I have the mental supplication of precognition, and hence can predict your thoughts, read your mind, and decipher your emotions.”
The man mulls this over, as he has been black-mailing his brother-in-law and there was that incident with his wife…”So then why don’t you force me into the tub already. Why must it be a decision of my own? Obviously the law is insubstantial regarding the circumstance; why must it be obeyed? If you never want me to be dirty again, then I command you, urge you, to wash me without my consent.”
“This is something I cannot do.”
“Why not?” the man inquires, flustered. He’s beginning to get very lackadaisical and apathetic.
“I can impose you to remain in this bathroom, but I cannot force you by any means to get into the tub. That must be of your own consent.”
Suddenly the man notices that something—resembling a grotesque skinless hand—is slithering its way through the tub’s drain. It seems to have no bone structure at all; just membranous flesh. The hand, twitching and jerking into form, holds out a white rose.
“There is a rose parade today,” the hand spouts. “There is no reason for you to be here!” The doorman, indignant, crosses his arms.
“I’m not going anywhere,” the man says. “This is probably just a ruse; some kind of gimmick to get me to get into the tub.”
“Not at all!” the hand smiles magnanimously. “I can make you satisfied in whatever you do.’”