C4 antho - Chamber Four

~38~ The Chamber Four Fiction Anthology
pebbled aromatizer. Below is the scribble of the artist’s signature,
and then a high-contrast shot of the angle between
the back of the frame and the nail holding it to the wall.
From there, the camera moves to the toilet paper cozy and
peers through the veil of its lace waistband to the bathroom
window and the stippled Tesuque sky framed inside. An
image of the sink draining (stopper missing) precedes a stunningly
abstract view of the raw, threaded end of the faucet
and the good twenty seconds or so it takes to form a drop of
water and release it. Form and release. Form. Release. Form.
Release.
There’s a teasing of dust from the medicine cabinet’s
hinges as it opens. A survey of the cabinet shelves ends in the
corners where the vinyl shelf-liners bunch up and no longer
stick to anything. The mercury in a thermometer reads well
below 98. A quick zoom shows a tube of toothpaste called
NUMSALVE, its lower half curled like a snail and its cap
dinged with tooth marks. The paste, on camera, sparkles. A
length of beaded chain leads to a bathtub plug and here, the
camera stares up into the rush of oncoming water. The lens
collides with pieces of grout before showing the H handle
turned on its side. A puffy scrubbing sponge with its rope
leash. A string of bubbles floating off screen. Long, tedious
shots of skin, hairy and hairless, a forearm. An inventory of
freckles near the navel, ten little toes refracted under water.
A piece of sock lint escaping. The camera traverses hilly terrain,
glides down a soft inner thigh, and exposes the poetry
of pubic hairs roiling with the tide. Underwater, the self-leveling
head spins, pushes against flesh, and dives bravely.
There’s something overhead, like a blimp, casting a long
shadow. Fingers, two of them, pointing up, pointing down.
There’s several seconds of turbulence, a fractal burst of light,
and then total darkness.