The sun was at its zenith when I finally escaped from the
suffocating heat of the road. I paused for a moment and leaned my back to an
upright log supporting our veranda. What to do next was beyond my
consciousness; for the first time, the three systems of my personality were
trying to meet reconciliation. It took a grand bell of the grandfather clock
for their decision to tap my flesh at last. Then I finally took another step.
It seemed that my mouth had released all of its moisture up to its last drip
into my soaked T-shirt; my body was exhausted.
After some more steps, I heard a voice from somewhere “Are you
okay?” I was not able to locate where the sound was coming, suddenly, I felt
another flesh touched mine. The creature grabbed my whole body, gripped it
tightly and caressed my hair. After it had let me go, the same flesh pressed a
piece of cloth to my forehead down to my neck and back. After the
confrontation, I was back into awareness. I noticed a smiling woman with a
towel in her hand standing in front of me. My mother grinned more happily when
I smiled back to her. She knew that I was not able to catch a good ride home
that I had to walk with my umbrella.
Then, I headed directly to our kitchen to quench my thirst. I felt
relief as the water entered my body. After drinking, I sat for a while and
thoroughly wiped my sweat. I went to my room and changed my clothes. I laid my
whole back on my bed, with knees bent so that my feet would touch the floor. I
laid there for a while until I lifted my body to hit the bath.
The water was in its usual coldness but relative to the heat of my
skin, it was out of the ordinary. The hotness of my temperature attracted me
more to the usual coldness of the water. I was being invited to have fun with it,
to feel every compound of two hydrogen and one oxygen as it pass through my
skin. Finally, right after I had taken my clothes off, I gave in and reveled in
to it.
At last, the clear liquid had started its journey as I twisted the
tap on. It silently fashioned its flow according the holes in the shower. They
all came out in a much-defined manner. They were all in lines, so smooth an
order that even light cannot intervene. The silence was first broken when it
landed on my head. It was then, I realized, the water was colder than I thought
it would be. However, that did not bother me; it excited me more instead.
The water gradually moistened my dry hair. I massaged my hair as
the water continued to pass through it.
I rubbed it with my hand, combed it with my hand, messed it again, and
finally let the water fix it alone. When I had enough playing with it, I moved
to reach a bottle of shampoo. As I tried to even the application of that ooze,
I was messing my hair again; when I was done, the water brought it back to
order once more. It was so amazing that
the liquid seemed to have its own pair of hands leading to the same direction
that my hands could go. If I could just sever the back of my head, I would have
seen my own reflection through my lustered hair; I would be more than amazed.
The moment the water had broken
its silence to touch my hair, was almost the very same instant it touched my
face. With my eyes, I could see the course that the water was taking as it
moved down my body. My lashes were gently curled as the water passed by them.
My pores were being filled to the surface. In my face, I distinctively felt its
coldness. Then, when it went by my lips, I partly tasted it. In my mouth, it tasted
as cold as when I was feeling it with my hands.
Later on, the water moved to wet
my shoulders and the remaining parts of my body, down to my thighs and feet. It
was moving so fast as my eyes could see but my mind was slowly feeling every
move it made. It passed by every fold in my body, relaxing every single hair
along its way. Its journey had entered another phase by then. That time, it had
been covering a wider part of my skin. Like the fix it had done to my hair, it
also washed away the sticky feeling of hotness and sweat in my body. I moved a
complete step again to grab a soap that would replace my not so pleasant smell.
It was then, I mixed-up the already-relaxed hairs in my skin. As the water
travelled again to rinse my bubble-filled body, it brought back the
organization I previously destroyed.
With shampooed-hair and
soaped-body, I felt fresh again. Moisture had finally gone back to my skin, I
no longer thirsted for it, and I was already in my satiety. It was not yet the
end for I had to finish the task. I twisted the tap in the opposite direction
and the water stopped leaking from its source. However, it was not yet a state
of equilibrium in the bathroom. I could still feel droplets of water in my
skin. The floor was still wet and I could see the water travel down the drain
to finally disappear from my sight. The water that fixed my hair on my head was
not the same water that relaxed the hairs on my skin. The water that I felt on
my face was not the same water that I felt in my hands. The water that washed
away the shampoo and the soap were not the same as well. More so, it was not
the same water from the kitchen that I drank earlier. Even different was the
water that soaked my T-shirt and I called sweat. The water that I had been
referring was not entirely the same water after all. One cannot touch the same
water twice, for it flows, it gives way to space, it continues to move. The
same thing when we take our bath, the water that flows out of the shower and
passes by our body is directly brought down the drain, down into the
underground system leading to sea. So that when we turn the tap again to take
another bath, a new batch of water is being showered onto our skin. The vast
ocean is less likely, impossible even to shower you an entirely the same water
that you have bathed before. Thus, water is a disposable resource. When it
returns to where it came from after we have use it, it is not the same clean
and clear water anymore. Given an enough time, nature has its way of recycling
it—a process in which humans are considered as intruders, harmful and
unwelcomed.
As I moved again to grab a towel,
I was just done experiencing another first time bathing.
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