The Bath

He slips into the bath tub. The water is hot, very hot and slides over him. He closes his eyes and leans back against the porcelain. He feels the heat penetrating his body and feels the pain slipping away. It always astounds him how immersion in a tub full of hot water strips everything away and makes the world pure and clean.

The water smells faintly of iron. He lays there until the world is lost in the sensation of the bath. He rolls his head and hears the popping in his neck. He straightens his knee, the damaged one, feeling it stretch. His finger tips find the piece of metal embedded in his right hand, between the first two fingers, that he has never bothered to have removed. He traces the line of the scar where it went in. He remembers closing the wound with an improvised butterfly of utility tape. He feels the slow rise and fall of his chest.

He counts each breath until he loses count. He opens his eyes and notes on the wall the sweep of the sun and the passage of time. He considers it odd the memories that lie in the bathtub with him. He splashes his feet and wishes he had a little yellow duck. No bath is truly pure without one. But this bath is close enough. Most of his life close enough has been good enough and he has made his peace with that.