June 30th, Sunday
10:45 A.M.
Joey Grazmecki trapped himself in his bathroom.
He had gone in to get a bandage for a cut on his finger, the result of a foolhardy attempt to slice through an apple in the fastest time possible, something he wouldn't have attempted if his wife had been home. The cut ran around the outside of his left index finger. It didn't threaten his life, but the pain annoyed him, and he didn't want to get any blood on his apple. He went into the bathroom next to the master bedroom, and rooted around in the cabinets until he found a package of bandages. He pulled out one at the right size, tore it out of the packaging, and leaned against the inside of the door while he applied it.
The door clanked shut. It didn't click shut, or slip shut, it clanked. Joey frowned and looked at the door handle. He finished applying the bandage, threw the wrapper away, and turned the handle. It turned, but when he pulled the door didn't move. Joey frowned again, and turned the handle back and forth a few times. The latch inside the door slid back and forth, but when Joey pulled on the handle, the door wouldn't open.
He took a step back and put his hands on his hips. He grabbed the handle and turned, and pulled, putting all of his 187 pounds behind the action. The door bowed in at him, but something still stuck, and he released the handle when he ran out of breath.
He grimaced at the door, wrinkling his upper lip. His apple waited for him in the kitchen, in fourths on the cutting board.
He grabbed the handle again and shook it back and forth, pumping his arms until his face turned red in the mirror. He ran his fingers around the rim of the door, along the crack. "Some gum or something," he said, as his fingers probed, but they found nothing.
White tile surrounded him as he stood in the middle of the bathroom. The lights buzzed over the mirror. A plush gray rug kept one foot off the cold floor. The faucet in the sink plinked a drop into the minute amount of standing water below it. A bar of soap next to the faucet filled the air with spring flowers, and Joey chewed on his lower lip, arms crossed.
"But why?" he asked the door.
The door didn't respond.
After another bout of shaking the handle back and forth, straining until his breath puffed out, he rested his palms on the counter and stared himself in the eye. He exhaled out his nose, cheeks puffed, and whirled back at the door. He pushed on it, leaned his weight in the same place when it had clanked shut, kicked it and punched it. He got a bruised finger—the middle finger of his right hand—for his trouble. "Just open!"
The door didn't open.
Joey harrumphed, and groaned, and sat on the toilet with the seat down. He got up a moment later and sat on the floor, back against the wall. He drummed his bandaged, bruised hands against his knees, inspecting every detail of the door.
He stood, disrobed, and showered, filling the room with steam. Ten minutes later he shut the water off, dried himself, re-robed, and yanked on the door handle again. The frame around it creaked, and his eyes widened, but the door didn't open. He growled and cursed under his breath, but he had more ideas.
His phone sat in the kitchen, next to his apple. His wife would return home around 1:30. He could drink out of the faucet. Maybe he could even take a nap. He would be fine.
11:15
What is Shelly going to think? He grit his teeth together as his thumb and forefinger slipped off the pin in the door's hinge. She's going to laugh at me, I know it. And then she's going to reveal something I could have done to get the door open, or remind me that I broke the latch a few months ago, or something like that. He snarled when his fingers slipped again, and beat on the hinge with the palm of his hand. "Are there tools in here or something? A screwdriver? Maybe even a hammer?"
He checked under the sink and in the cabinets. He pulled out racks of cleaning supplies, wrinkled sponges, piles of towels, a depleted bag of toilet paper, a loofah, a bundle of spare tampons, a cord to his electric razor, a rubber band ball, and a box full of old toothbrushes. He found no tools, nothing he could use to attack the hardware of the door, or even hack through the wood. He sighed and went back to picking at the hinge. "Damn these hands!"
11:25
Tomorrow I have to pick up my prescription. Maybe I can leave work a little early. He shifted and rubbed his back. Maybe I should pick up some painkillers, too. I also have to mow. Oh, and that damn staff report is due or Mr. Alberts will be at my throat. He sighed, and his lips rippled until he had run out of air. And this isn't helping my heart pressure.
"Why? he asked the door. "Why would you do this to me?" After a few moments he glanced at his finger, wrapped in the bandage. "And don't think I've forgotten about you." He sighed again, and his head clunked against the wall. "And my poor apple. Sitting there all alone. It's probably browning already."
He stood up and tried the door again. He pulled until the door became a convex piece of wood, creaking and groaning, but it still didn't come unstuck. He relaxed, and it flattened back down, and he turned on the fan in the ceiling to suck the moisture out of the air.
11:35
He drummed on the counter with a few of the old toothbrushes, bobbing his head in time. The flat section of the counter in front of him rolled the snare, small tins served as toms, and various sections of the faucet head let the cymbals ring. Every eleven seconds he would stop to let the faucet drip, and then keep drumming. He halted, half-way through a fill. Who was the drummer for that one really famous Beatles cover band? He was good. Mike something. He continued with his solo.
11:58
His fingers wriggled at his sides, near his hips. His feet spread on the wet floor. His eyes narrowed, and they flicked back and forth around the door—center mass? Near the hinges? Just to the side of the handle?
"The center, of course," he said. He sucked in a deep breath. He let it out. He sucked in another one. He released it. He filled his lungs with all the moist air he could get. Here we go!
The breath ached inside his lungs for ten seconds, and then he snorted it out through his nose. He squeezed his hands into fists and held them in front of his face, blood rushing through his head. He roared, yearning to break through the mental bonds holding him back.
12:10
"This can't be happening. This really can't be happening. Open. Just open. Open. Just open. Just! Open! OPEN! JUST OPEN! Why? Why would this happen? What did I do wrong? Did I not do critical bathroom door maintenance? I promise, if you open for me right now, I'll polish you every week, no questions asked. Just open. Just open. Just swing open for me, please. Please? Please. I can't believe this. I'm going to be stuck in this bathroom until the end of time. They'll find my shriveled bones in this bathroom moments before Armageddon."
He pushed the bar of soap around on the counter. "I guess it's not so bad."
12:20
"Where is she?" He laid on his back, feet flat against the door. He pressed with his toes every eleven seconds, creaking the wood but doing nothing else. "It's gotta be past 1:30 by now. Maybe she's just late. Traffic was bad. It's almost Fourth of July, people are probably traveling out of state. I just have to wait a little bit longer."
12:42
The growls coming from his stomach rebounded around him, filling the room with a mighty roar. He licked his lips, drank cold water from the faucet, and re-fluffed the towels under his head.
His apple sat on the cutting board, a million trillion miles away, rotting down to dust and ashes as he rolled back and forth on the bathroom floor. It waited for him, waited, like the navy had sent him away to a foreign sea, and it stood on the bluff overlooking the harbor with the wind blowing across it, waiting for his ship to bring him home.
1:29
He brought the tube of toothpaste under his nose, hesitated, and then snorted the minty bouquet. Shivers ran down his back and up into his face, and the tube of toothpaste rolled out of his hand, across a half-foot of tile. "One of these days," he said to the ceiling. "One of these days I'll quit the tube. Cold turkey." He tried to snap his right fingers, but the bruised middle finger bothered him, so he switched to the left. "And I won't ever do it again. I promise honey. Just get it out of the house." He gazed at the bandage as his right hand scrambled over the tile for the tube. "I swear I'll quit. I'll get the minty monkey off my back if it's the last thing I do."
1:44
The Comet had a bit of a lean to it. He shook it, and the little bit of cleansing powder in the bottom rattled. A definite no. It makes you vomit.
The 409 had a regal appearance. Smooth and sleek. But still, no.
Shelly's conditioner beckoned him forward with bright colors and a fruity smell. Passionfruit.
No, Shelly would be disappointed. He looked to the next bottle on the counter, his body wash.
"What does it mean to smell like spring rain?" he asked the bottle. "How is spring rain different from summer rain? or fall rain? Why does it smell different? Is it a connotation of growth and cleanliness? Does spring bring cleanliness? Is it because of spring cleaning?" He pulled the bottle closer and popped the cap off, breathing deep. His eyes watered and he snapped the cap shut. "Away, foul murk! Spring rain my ass!"
The next bottle offered shaving cream, perfect for tough chins and slender legs. He licked his lips. But it presented a warning: for external use only. He placed it back on the counter.
2:11
"Ring-ding-ding-ding-dingeringeding! Gering-ding-ding-ding-dingeringeding! Gering-ding-ding-ding-dingeringeding!" Joey hummed a bar. "Wa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pow! Wa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pow!
Wa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pow!" Another bar. "Hatee-hatee-hatee-ho! Hatee-hatee-hatee-ho! Hatee-hatee-hatee-ho!" Another bar. Joey frowned and opened his mouth, then shut it. "Damn it, what was the last one? What does the fox say?"
He laughed.
2:47
"Apple. Aaaaaaaappleeee." His nose entered the crack under the door. A little tuft of carpet greeted it where the tile ended. "Come here apple. Come here. Come on, you can do it. Just a little farther. You're almost there. Thaaat's it. Now just reach up and grab the handle and push. Put all of your sweet, delicious, appley weight into it, and then we can finally be together. Together forever. No, no, don't worry about my wife, she doesn't have to know."
"Get a hold of yourself, Joseph," the 409 said. "Look at you, lying on the floor and talking to an apple. You know it isn't coming."
"I don't need your sass right now, Four," Joey said. "Help get me out of here or keep your comments to yourself."
3:10
The stack of old toothbrushes had grown to almost a foot tall. Two on each level, sometimes three if they had strange shapes or an odd length. The bottles and containers looked down on him from the counter, except for the body lotion, which sulked in the corner.
It had insinuated some very mean things about the hand soap, and Joey told it to go to time out.
The toothbrushes fell over, and without pause Joey analyzed the lower levels of the structure, to try and find the weakness. Ah, there: one of the toothbrushes had tilted—it had a rounded back.
"Why would you make a toothbrush like that? People put the toothpaste on, put the toothbrush down, and close the toothpaste." Joey looked over the edge of the tub, at the tube of toothpaste. "No, be strong, Joey." He shook his head. "It's just not a good construction for a toothbrush. It rolls over too easily. It's responsible for too many dirtied countertops and soiled globs of toothpaste, and it has no place in my tower of hygiene!"
3:33
His hard eyes gazed back at him from the other side of the mirror. His hands, covered in bandages, lifted to his right cheek, then his left, placing more bandages under his eyes. His brow deepened.
Big bandages covered his chest and stomach. Small ones curved around his jaw. Bandages with hearts—for the special boo-boos—wrapped around his splayed toes.
"Let the hunt...begin."
3:40
Joey rested on one knee, one bandage-covered hand to his heart and the other raised. "Oh, sweet lass. My rescuer, my salvation. I let down my hair for you to climb, yet you climb it not. Instead it sways, and you stay away. Why, oh Shelly, why, why do you stay away and let me sit in my squalor?"
The raised hand fell to his side. "I see. I know. You have found another. With a warm embrace and a bright smile, and he showers you with fresh, plump apples, so that you may feast forevermore, while I sit in my cage and beat the door with bruised fists, and eat no apples. Apples are for those who do not lock themselves away, and I do not deserve them."
4:11
The blades of his hands sliced through the air, and the bottom of his foot slashed at the level of his neck. He spread his feet, crouched, his hands in fists. "Hoo! Haa! Hoooooo!"
They came from all sides, slipping through the cracks in the grout, under the door, up from the cistern behind the toilet, and unfolding from under the sink. Skintight black clothing swaddled them, and red sashes wound 'round their waists, and red masks fit over their eyes.
"Why would you wear such an eye-catching color?" Joey shouted, and the fight began. He dispatched two of them with jabs and hooks. "Aren't you supposed to stay out of sight?"
"Belts taper the waist!" one of the ninjas said.
Joey hauled him into the tub. "But black is already slimming! If your waist tapers then you can look too thin!"
"We're highly muscular!" The next ninja grabbed Joey's wrist with a hand. Joey grabbed the ninja's other wrist, and then they pushed and pulled, trying to get the other onto the ground as the ninja's comrades circled them, waiting for their turn. "And we have a low body fat percentage, but we don't focus on building muscular size, so our torsos are slim and flat! Adding a tapering look helps with our aesthetic!"
"I'm proud of you for taking your physical health so importantly!" Joey said after he had thrown the ninja into the mirror. It shattered into a thousand pieces, but the mirror remained whole.
4:37
"Apple! Apple I know you can hear me! Don't you ignore me any longer! You are going to get a spanking, young man! I'm sure that you think you're sitting pretty on the cutting board, don't you? Well when I get out of here you're going to know what real fear is! I'm going to make your life a living hell! You won't be able to go to work, or out with your friends, or anywhere, without me there! Watching you! I'll break you! I promise you, apple, I will break you!"
5:00
"It just doesn't seem fair, you know?" Lying on his back, he tossed the rubber band ball into the air and caught it with one hand. "I work hard, I love my wife, I'm a good person. I give to charity, I'm friendly with my neighbors, I don't do bad things. So why am I trapped in the bathroom?"
The 409 didn't respond.
Joey threw the ball and caught it again. "Is it really just random? Why do annoying things happen to mostly-good people? Here it is probably eight o'clock at night, I'm still in here, I've drank more faucet water than I ever thought possible, Shelly isn't home yet, and I feel like I'm close to losing my mind. My apple is out there, still waiting. I had things I was going to do today! It was supposed to be my day off! But noooooooo, I had to trap myself in the bathroom."
He threw the ball and caught it. "I mean, I guess things could be worse. I have my health. I'm in a good relationship. I like my job. But it could be better, y'know? I could not be trapped in the bathroom. Just throwing something out, here, I could be somewhere else."
He threw the ball up and didn't catch it. It didn't come down.
5:40
He put his lips over the end of the faucet and turned the water on in a trickle, swallowing as fast as he could. After fifteen seconds and lost his breath and coughed, spraying water over the counter and the bottles lined up against the mirror.
"Look at yourself, Joseph," 409 said. "You need to get a grip. It isn't as late as you think, and Shelly didn't leave you. You're just imagining things."
"No I'm not," Joey said, gasping. "No. I'm. Not." He swallowed and licked his lips. "I'm not imagining anything, Four. Not a damn thing."
"Suit yourself," 409 said. "We're worried about you, Joseph. Body Butter thinks you need help."
"Tell Body Butter I think she's-"
"Joseph, don't say something you're going to regret."
6:36
The lights flickered over the mirror. The gray carpet lay rumpled against the wall. The cleaning supplies formed a leering ring around the bar of soap. He tapped his finger every eleven seconds.
The door to the garage opened and slammed shut, and Joey lurched up, looking around as dizziness blurred the room. He crawled to the door and pressed the side of his face against it. Someone moved in the foyer, muttering and cursing. The person came up the stairs.
Joey banged on the door. "Shelly! Shelly! Help! I'm trapped in the bathroom!"
6:45
"What took you so long?" he asked when he lay with his face on the carpet in the hallway. "Where were you?"
Shelly knelt next to him. The door bent on its hinges after Shelly's charge. "It's a good thing we're married, honey. I locked myself in the bathroom at work. It took hours for anyone to notice, and then they had to call the fire department."
6:50
Their laughter ceased at last, and Joey pulled his wife into his arms on the hallway floor. "If it's any consolation," he said, "your day sounds better than mine. At least you got to see a fire truck."
10:45 P.M.
Hallway light spilled across the kitchen's tiled floor. Soft footsteps entered the room, and the door swung shut, cutting off the light. Feet slid across the floor, closer and closer to the cutting board, and the brown apple slices upon it.
"I've been waiting for this for a long time."
10:45 A.M.
Joey Grazmecki trapped himself in his bathroom.
He had gone in to get a bandage for a cut on his finger, the result of a foolhardy attempt to slice through an apple in the fastest time possible, something he wouldn't have attempted if his wife had been home. The cut ran around the outside of his left index finger. It didn't threaten his life, but the pain annoyed him, and he didn't want to get any blood on his apple. He went into the bathroom next to the master bedroom, and rooted around in the cabinets until he found a package of bandages. He pulled out one at the right size, tore it out of the packaging, and leaned against the inside of the door while he applied it.
The door clanked shut. It didn't click shut, or slip shut, it clanked. Joey frowned and looked at the door handle. He finished applying the bandage, threw the wrapper away, and turned the handle. It turned, but when he pulled the door didn't move. Joey frowned again, and turned the handle back and forth a few times. The latch inside the door slid back and forth, but when Joey pulled on the handle, the door wouldn't open.
He took a step back and put his hands on his hips. He grabbed the handle and turned, and pulled, putting all of his 187 pounds behind the action. The door bowed in at him, but something still stuck, and he released the handle when he ran out of breath.
He grimaced at the door, wrinkling his upper lip. His apple waited for him in the kitchen, in fourths on the cutting board.
He grabbed the handle again and shook it back and forth, pumping his arms until his face turned red in the mirror. He ran his fingers around the rim of the door, along the crack. "Some gum or something," he said, as his fingers probed, but they found nothing.
White tile surrounded him as he stood in the middle of the bathroom. The lights buzzed over the mirror. A plush gray rug kept one foot off the cold floor. The faucet in the sink plinked a drop into the minute amount of standing water below it. A bar of soap next to the faucet filled the air with spring flowers, and Joey chewed on his lower lip, arms crossed.
"But why?" he asked the door.
The door didn't respond.
After another bout of shaking the handle back and forth, straining until his breath puffed out, he rested his palms on the counter and stared himself in the eye. He exhaled out his nose, cheeks puffed, and whirled back at the door. He pushed on it, leaned his weight in the same place when it had clanked shut, kicked it and punched it. He got a bruised finger—the middle finger of his right hand—for his trouble. "Just open!"
The door didn't open.
Joey harrumphed, and groaned, and sat on the toilet with the seat down. He got up a moment later and sat on the floor, back against the wall. He drummed his bandaged, bruised hands against his knees, inspecting every detail of the door.
He stood, disrobed, and showered, filling the room with steam. Ten minutes later he shut the water off, dried himself, re-robed, and yanked on the door handle again. The frame around it creaked, and his eyes widened, but the door didn't open. He growled and cursed under his breath, but he had more ideas.
His phone sat in the kitchen, next to his apple. His wife would return home around 1:30. He could drink out of the faucet. Maybe he could even take a nap. He would be fine.
11:15
What is Shelly going to think? He grit his teeth together as his thumb and forefinger slipped off the pin in the door's hinge. She's going to laugh at me, I know it. And then she's going to reveal something I could have done to get the door open, or remind me that I broke the latch a few months ago, or something like that. He snarled when his fingers slipped again, and beat on the hinge with the palm of his hand. "Are there tools in here or something? A screwdriver? Maybe even a hammer?"
He checked under the sink and in the cabinets. He pulled out racks of cleaning supplies, wrinkled sponges, piles of towels, a depleted bag of toilet paper, a loofah, a bundle of spare tampons, a cord to his electric razor, a rubber band ball, and a box full of old toothbrushes. He found no tools, nothing he could use to attack the hardware of the door, or even hack through the wood. He sighed and went back to picking at the hinge. "Damn these hands!"
11:25
Tomorrow I have to pick up my prescription. Maybe I can leave work a little early. He shifted and rubbed his back. Maybe I should pick up some painkillers, too. I also have to mow. Oh, and that damn staff report is due or Mr. Alberts will be at my throat. He sighed, and his lips rippled until he had run out of air. And this isn't helping my heart pressure.
"Why? he asked the door. "Why would you do this to me?" After a few moments he glanced at his finger, wrapped in the bandage. "And don't think I've forgotten about you." He sighed again, and his head clunked against the wall. "And my poor apple. Sitting there all alone. It's probably browning already."
He stood up and tried the door again. He pulled until the door became a convex piece of wood, creaking and groaning, but it still didn't come unstuck. He relaxed, and it flattened back down, and he turned on the fan in the ceiling to suck the moisture out of the air.
11:35
He drummed on the counter with a few of the old toothbrushes, bobbing his head in time. The flat section of the counter in front of him rolled the snare, small tins served as toms, and various sections of the faucet head let the cymbals ring. Every eleven seconds he would stop to let the faucet drip, and then keep drumming. He halted, half-way through a fill. Who was the drummer for that one really famous Beatles cover band? He was good. Mike something. He continued with his solo.
11:58
His fingers wriggled at his sides, near his hips. His feet spread on the wet floor. His eyes narrowed, and they flicked back and forth around the door—center mass? Near the hinges? Just to the side of the handle?
"The center, of course," he said. He sucked in a deep breath. He let it out. He sucked in another one. He released it. He filled his lungs with all the moist air he could get. Here we go!
The breath ached inside his lungs for ten seconds, and then he snorted it out through his nose. He squeezed his hands into fists and held them in front of his face, blood rushing through his head. He roared, yearning to break through the mental bonds holding him back.
12:10
"This can't be happening. This really can't be happening. Open. Just open. Open. Just open. Just! Open! OPEN! JUST OPEN! Why? Why would this happen? What did I do wrong? Did I not do critical bathroom door maintenance? I promise, if you open for me right now, I'll polish you every week, no questions asked. Just open. Just open. Just swing open for me, please. Please? Please. I can't believe this. I'm going to be stuck in this bathroom until the end of time. They'll find my shriveled bones in this bathroom moments before Armageddon."
He pushed the bar of soap around on the counter. "I guess it's not so bad."
12:20
"Where is she?" He laid on his back, feet flat against the door. He pressed with his toes every eleven seconds, creaking the wood but doing nothing else. "It's gotta be past 1:30 by now. Maybe she's just late. Traffic was bad. It's almost Fourth of July, people are probably traveling out of state. I just have to wait a little bit longer."
12:42
The growls coming from his stomach rebounded around him, filling the room with a mighty roar. He licked his lips, drank cold water from the faucet, and re-fluffed the towels under his head.
His apple sat on the cutting board, a million trillion miles away, rotting down to dust and ashes as he rolled back and forth on the bathroom floor. It waited for him, waited, like the navy had sent him away to a foreign sea, and it stood on the bluff overlooking the harbor with the wind blowing across it, waiting for his ship to bring him home.
1:29
He brought the tube of toothpaste under his nose, hesitated, and then snorted the minty bouquet. Shivers ran down his back and up into his face, and the tube of toothpaste rolled out of his hand, across a half-foot of tile. "One of these days," he said to the ceiling. "One of these days I'll quit the tube. Cold turkey." He tried to snap his right fingers, but the bruised middle finger bothered him, so he switched to the left. "And I won't ever do it again. I promise honey. Just get it out of the house." He gazed at the bandage as his right hand scrambled over the tile for the tube. "I swear I'll quit. I'll get the minty monkey off my back if it's the last thing I do."
1:44
The Comet had a bit of a lean to it. He shook it, and the little bit of cleansing powder in the bottom rattled. A definite no. It makes you vomit.
The 409 had a regal appearance. Smooth and sleek. But still, no.
Shelly's conditioner beckoned him forward with bright colors and a fruity smell. Passionfruit.
No, Shelly would be disappointed. He looked to the next bottle on the counter, his body wash.
"What does it mean to smell like spring rain?" he asked the bottle. "How is spring rain different from summer rain? or fall rain? Why does it smell different? Is it a connotation of growth and cleanliness? Does spring bring cleanliness? Is it because of spring cleaning?" He pulled the bottle closer and popped the cap off, breathing deep. His eyes watered and he snapped the cap shut. "Away, foul murk! Spring rain my ass!"
The next bottle offered shaving cream, perfect for tough chins and slender legs. He licked his lips. But it presented a warning: for external use only. He placed it back on the counter.
2:11
"Ring-ding-ding-ding-dingeringeding! Gering-ding-ding-ding-dingeringeding! Gering-ding-ding-ding-dingeringeding!" Joey hummed a bar. "Wa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pow! Wa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pow!
Wa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pow!" Another bar. "Hatee-hatee-hatee-ho! Hatee-hatee-hatee-ho! Hatee-hatee-hatee-ho!" Another bar. Joey frowned and opened his mouth, then shut it. "Damn it, what was the last one? What does the fox say?"
He laughed.
2:47
"Apple. Aaaaaaaappleeee." His nose entered the crack under the door. A little tuft of carpet greeted it where the tile ended. "Come here apple. Come here. Come on, you can do it. Just a little farther. You're almost there. Thaaat's it. Now just reach up and grab the handle and push. Put all of your sweet, delicious, appley weight into it, and then we can finally be together. Together forever. No, no, don't worry about my wife, she doesn't have to know."
"Get a hold of yourself, Joseph," the 409 said. "Look at you, lying on the floor and talking to an apple. You know it isn't coming."
"I don't need your sass right now, Four," Joey said. "Help get me out of here or keep your comments to yourself."
3:10
The stack of old toothbrushes had grown to almost a foot tall. Two on each level, sometimes three if they had strange shapes or an odd length. The bottles and containers looked down on him from the counter, except for the body lotion, which sulked in the corner.
It had insinuated some very mean things about the hand soap, and Joey told it to go to time out.
The toothbrushes fell over, and without pause Joey analyzed the lower levels of the structure, to try and find the weakness. Ah, there: one of the toothbrushes had tilted—it had a rounded back.
"Why would you make a toothbrush like that? People put the toothpaste on, put the toothbrush down, and close the toothpaste." Joey looked over the edge of the tub, at the tube of toothpaste. "No, be strong, Joey." He shook his head. "It's just not a good construction for a toothbrush. It rolls over too easily. It's responsible for too many dirtied countertops and soiled globs of toothpaste, and it has no place in my tower of hygiene!"
3:33
His hard eyes gazed back at him from the other side of the mirror. His hands, covered in bandages, lifted to his right cheek, then his left, placing more bandages under his eyes. His brow deepened.
Big bandages covered his chest and stomach. Small ones curved around his jaw. Bandages with hearts—for the special boo-boos—wrapped around his splayed toes.
"Let the hunt...begin."
3:40
Joey rested on one knee, one bandage-covered hand to his heart and the other raised. "Oh, sweet lass. My rescuer, my salvation. I let down my hair for you to climb, yet you climb it not. Instead it sways, and you stay away. Why, oh Shelly, why, why do you stay away and let me sit in my squalor?"
The raised hand fell to his side. "I see. I know. You have found another. With a warm embrace and a bright smile, and he showers you with fresh, plump apples, so that you may feast forevermore, while I sit in my cage and beat the door with bruised fists, and eat no apples. Apples are for those who do not lock themselves away, and I do not deserve them."
4:11
The blades of his hands sliced through the air, and the bottom of his foot slashed at the level of his neck. He spread his feet, crouched, his hands in fists. "Hoo! Haa! Hoooooo!"
They came from all sides, slipping through the cracks in the grout, under the door, up from the cistern behind the toilet, and unfolding from under the sink. Skintight black clothing swaddled them, and red sashes wound 'round their waists, and red masks fit over their eyes.
"Why would you wear such an eye-catching color?" Joey shouted, and the fight began. He dispatched two of them with jabs and hooks. "Aren't you supposed to stay out of sight?"
"Belts taper the waist!" one of the ninjas said.
Joey hauled him into the tub. "But black is already slimming! If your waist tapers then you can look too thin!"
"We're highly muscular!" The next ninja grabbed Joey's wrist with a hand. Joey grabbed the ninja's other wrist, and then they pushed and pulled, trying to get the other onto the ground as the ninja's comrades circled them, waiting for their turn. "And we have a low body fat percentage, but we don't focus on building muscular size, so our torsos are slim and flat! Adding a tapering look helps with our aesthetic!"
"I'm proud of you for taking your physical health so importantly!" Joey said after he had thrown the ninja into the mirror. It shattered into a thousand pieces, but the mirror remained whole.
4:37
"Apple! Apple I know you can hear me! Don't you ignore me any longer! You are going to get a spanking, young man! I'm sure that you think you're sitting pretty on the cutting board, don't you? Well when I get out of here you're going to know what real fear is! I'm going to make your life a living hell! You won't be able to go to work, or out with your friends, or anywhere, without me there! Watching you! I'll break you! I promise you, apple, I will break you!"
5:00
"It just doesn't seem fair, you know?" Lying on his back, he tossed the rubber band ball into the air and caught it with one hand. "I work hard, I love my wife, I'm a good person. I give to charity, I'm friendly with my neighbors, I don't do bad things. So why am I trapped in the bathroom?"
The 409 didn't respond.
Joey threw the ball and caught it again. "Is it really just random? Why do annoying things happen to mostly-good people? Here it is probably eight o'clock at night, I'm still in here, I've drank more faucet water than I ever thought possible, Shelly isn't home yet, and I feel like I'm close to losing my mind. My apple is out there, still waiting. I had things I was going to do today! It was supposed to be my day off! But noooooooo, I had to trap myself in the bathroom."
He threw the ball and caught it. "I mean, I guess things could be worse. I have my health. I'm in a good relationship. I like my job. But it could be better, y'know? I could not be trapped in the bathroom. Just throwing something out, here, I could be somewhere else."
He threw the ball up and didn't catch it. It didn't come down.
5:40
He put his lips over the end of the faucet and turned the water on in a trickle, swallowing as fast as he could. After fifteen seconds and lost his breath and coughed, spraying water over the counter and the bottles lined up against the mirror.
"Look at yourself, Joseph," 409 said. "You need to get a grip. It isn't as late as you think, and Shelly didn't leave you. You're just imagining things."
"No I'm not," Joey said, gasping. "No. I'm. Not." He swallowed and licked his lips. "I'm not imagining anything, Four. Not a damn thing."
"Suit yourself," 409 said. "We're worried about you, Joseph. Body Butter thinks you need help."
"Tell Body Butter I think she's-"
"Joseph, don't say something you're going to regret."
6:36
The lights flickered over the mirror. The gray carpet lay rumpled against the wall. The cleaning supplies formed a leering ring around the bar of soap. He tapped his finger every eleven seconds.
The door to the garage opened and slammed shut, and Joey lurched up, looking around as dizziness blurred the room. He crawled to the door and pressed the side of his face against it. Someone moved in the foyer, muttering and cursing. The person came up the stairs.
Joey banged on the door. "Shelly! Shelly! Help! I'm trapped in the bathroom!"
6:45
"What took you so long?" he asked when he lay with his face on the carpet in the hallway. "Where were you?"
Shelly knelt next to him. The door bent on its hinges after Shelly's charge. "It's a good thing we're married, honey. I locked myself in the bathroom at work. It took hours for anyone to notice, and then they had to call the fire department."
6:50
Their laughter ceased at last, and Joey pulled his wife into his arms on the hallway floor. "If it's any consolation," he said, "your day sounds better than mine. At least you got to see a fire truck."
10:45 P.M.
Hallway light spilled across the kitchen's tiled floor. Soft footsteps entered the room, and the door swung shut, cutting off the light. Feet slid across the floor, closer and closer to the cutting board, and the brown apple slices upon it.
"I've been waiting for this for a long time."