Coming home from work late, she strips off her clothes as she enters her apartment; pops some bread in the toaster, opens the fridge and pours herself a glass of wine.Entering the bathroom, she places her wine glass on the tub’s edge and twists the faucet, releasing a stream of warm water into the cool, cast-iron tub. Standing before the full-length mirror, she casually observes the angry, red lines across her waist and breasts, where her clothes have been digging into her flesh all day.
Gingerly she steps into the tub. Slowly lowering herself into the warm water, a shiver runs up her spine. She reaches for a bite of buttered toast and a sip of wine before laying back. Exhaling, she sinks deeper into the tub. And that’s when it happens. That’s when she completely dissolves. She is simply a pool of water, perfectly contained by the tub. Free of any aches or pains. Free of constriction. Free of any physicality whatsoever.
After the initial euphoria passes, she wonders, should she scream? And if so, how? Does she need to tell someone what has happened? Her boyfriend might like to know, strange as it is.
Like Cinderella, will this magic automatically be undone at midnight? Or, like Sleeping Beauty, must it be undone with a kiss? If so, will her boyfriend intuit to kiss the murky water that sits where she once was? And if he does, should she worry he’s developed some sort of bath water fetish?
Moreover, being a philanthropic soul, she wonders: if she doesn’t reconstitute, do her juices hold any marketable or scientific value? She does, after all, want to leave something behind for her loved ones. That is, besides a tub of useless liquid.
Alas, she needn’t have worried as her re-constitution occurs precisely as her morning alarm goes off and she finds herself naked and shivering in the tub. Filled with so many questions, she somehow manages to shower (no more baths for a while), dries, dresses and heads off to work – as if nothing has happened at all.
As she boards the commuter train, she can’t help but notice the blank, slightly confounded expressions of the other commuters. Has it happened to them too?