A short story that I wrote quickly on Friday.
I have read through it a couple of times and have changed and edited it a little, but the whole story, concept and everything is the same. I just mainly made grammar and language changes. I’m sure there are still some mistakes in there, but I wanted to get it up before the weekend ended. Enjoy it if you can.
“Bath Tub”
Bath Tub
Jim walks into a bar. No, this isn’t a joke. He’s at the bar to look for a good time. It’s Friday night and all he wants is to get fucked up. Not a little drunk, not just drunk, not even faded, but he wants to get Fucked Up!
The week has been hard. He’s walked a very small tight rope at work all week. His girlfriend just came clean about her vacation, that’s another story in itself. So all he wants is to drown his cares in as much alcohol as his credit card, or body will allow.
Jim didn’t call any friends to see if they wanted to join him. He doesn’t have a death wish. He just feels like he needs a little excitement or distraction. Either will work just fine. Some would say he’s depressed. Some would say he should think before he acts. Well some ain’t him, are they?
He walks to the bar and speaks as clearly as he can.
“Give me a bottle of Jack.”
The bartender looks at him quizzically. It is loud tonight. Apparently he’s come on the night that the bar decided to try out a live band. They weren’t that great either. Imagine Rolling Stones mixed with Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana, and monkeys with instruments.
“I said a bottle of Jack.” Jim said.
“You want a shot?” The bartender asked.
“No just a bottle of Jack.”
“This isn’t a liquor store bro.”
Bro? He said bro. What time loop did I enter? Only assholes and surfers say bro. Jim said to himself wanting to drink even more.
“Fine. A Jack and Coke, no Coke.”
The bartender gave him that look that a lot of liquor jockeys give people when they ask for alcohol and say, keep it coming. That look that says, your life is screwed and I’m gonna make a lot of money tonight, and then call the cops for your drunk ass. The bartender hands Jim a small glass of Jack.
The next morning Jim opens his eyes. His first thought is, why did I get that job? Jim stands up.
(This isn’t quite a Hangover movie type story, but it’s what I would call an homage.)
Jim rubs his eyes and walks in the direction he had always gone to use the bathroom. While he rubs his eyes he notices a chill. He looks down and he’s naked. That’s also when he notices that he is not in his apartment. Nothing looks familiar at all. He could honestly say that he had never seen this place. He turns around takes a look at where he was lying down. It isn’t a bed. It is a blanket, on a couch cushion, on a board, on couple milk crates. (Does everyone still remember milk crates?) Jim shutters. There is a liquid on the blanket that is unrecognizable and a little man (i.e. little person, midget, dwarf…) lying on the floor next to the bed, like setup, also naked. Jim suddenly feels sick. He pukes on the already stained unpadded carpet and almost pees on it. He struggles to stay standing; feeling like his life is draining through his vomit.
Jim wakes up again. He’s lying on the floor, still naked.
“Shit! I must’ve passed out. This wasn’t the type of excitement I was talking about.”
Jim stands up and runs around the room looking for his clothes, for any clothes at all. The little man turns on his side. Jim notices some shorts lying under the little man’s ass. They are his shorts. Jim almost pukes again but reached for the shorts. He tugs at the shorts and the little man rolls on to his stomach releasing the shorts. Not even thinking twice, Jim puts the shorts on. He tries to look for any other clothes, but not finding any he decides it is time to get out of this terrible room.
To think, when Jim was a child, if he woke up with a little man in his room, he probably would have been the happiest little boy ever. Well as long as he had clothes on. As long as they both had clothes on. Jim walks out the only door he sees.
Walking toward a set of stairs, Jim sees more vomit inducing sights. Right outside the door way of the room, with the little man, is what appears to be an adult diaper. It appears to be used. In the doorway of the next room sits a strange box with foreign letters written on it. It’s not the foreign letter that’s strange, but the fact that half the box seems to made of some sort of silicon type substance and a decapitated doll head, half bald and half with hair and with no nose, sits on top of it. The smells in the hallway alone are strong enough and pungent enough to cause a death causing vomit attack, but Jim pushes through the urge. The doorway just before the stairs is the bathroom. As horrid as this place has been so far, the bathroom is eerily spotless. Jim walks in the bathroom and is surprised that the smell in the bathroom is amazing. For the first time since he puked, he didn’t feel like puking. Jim shuts the door and relieves himself.
Jim opens the door and is hit by the horrendous smell of the hallway. He now feels better at least physically, so it’s easier for him to hold back the vomit. He starts to head down the stairs when he hears voices from downstairs.
“Where’s the bro you brought home last night?” A guy’s voice asks.
“He’s upstairs with Ro.” A girl voice replies.
“Why did you bring him here?” The guy asks.
“He said he wanted to. His life is shit right now and he wanted to just get away from it.” The girl said.
“We don’t have room for anymore. If his mind wasn’t so screwed up, he wouldn’t even be able to be here.”
“Isn’t that what it’s for?” The girl asked.
“But we don’t know if he can. He might mess it up for the rest of us.” The guy responded angrily.
“If he can’t, then why the hell would we be able to?” The girl asked confused.
“Only a few people, that was the deal.”
“That’s all we have.”
Jim stands at the top of the stairs trying to listen to every word and attempting to see the people speaking. He steps down one more step to try to hear better and maybe see them. The step creaks.
The guy and girl look up toward the stairs.
“What the hell was that?” The girl asks and walks toward the stairs.
Jim moves back up into the hallway. He walks quickly into the bathroom and steps into the bath tub.
“Why am I here? What are they talking about? What can I, or can’t I do? Why am I asking myself? I don’t know any of these things. Only they do. So why did I run in here? I don’t think they want to kill me, but yet I’m scared retarded.” Jim talks out loud to himself.
“Why am I talking out loud? If I’m scared won’t they hear me?” Jim still talking to himself.
Jim hears creaking noises.
“Oh shit their coming. Shut up asshole. Why can’t you stop talking out loud?”
The noises stop.
“What was it?” The guy yells from downstairs.
“I don’t know. I don’t see anything. I’m gonna check on Ro and the guy.” The girl replies from right outside the bathroom.
Oh shit! She’s gonna see that I’m not in there. Jim says to himself finally. He moves the shower curtain in the bath tub and peeks out toward doorway. He catches a glimpse of the girl walking by. She is naked. Jim steps out of the bath tub and his foot bumps something sticking out of the wall in the bath tub. A bright light starts to form in the bath tub. Slowly a sound like none other that Jim has heard before, also starts to come out of the growing light. At first he is scared, but the bigger that the light gets and the louder the sound gets, the more calm he gets. Jim stands outside the bath tub staring at the continuous growing light. He hears a voice in his head telling him to take off his shorts. Jim takes off his short and walks toward the light.
The guy and girl hear the unknown sound. The girl runs back toward the bathroom. The guy runs upstairs. They both get to the bathroom doorway at the same time. They see Jim stepping into the bath tub with a growing light inside it. The noise gets almost deafening. Jim turns and sees the guy and girl standing in the doorway. He recognizes the girl from last night.
The girl is some chick that he met at the bar. She said she had had a terrible week as well. She caught her boyfriend having sex with her sister and mother at the same time in their apartment. Her boss told her that she was being fired, but if she moved in with him and promised to be his sex slave, she would never have to worry about anything again. She had thought about killing herself but she met this guy who helped her through her problems. Kind of like a therapist or something. That dude was standing next to her, also naked.
The girl introduced Jim to the guy after they had exchanged their terrible week stories. The guy didn’t seem as interested in Jim as the girl was. He said he wasn’t a therapist but he had something that helped the girl through her problems. He left not long after that, but Jim and the girl kept talking and drinking together.
Sandra and Nolan, that’s their names. Jim remembered to himself. They brought me here, and I think for this. The sound stopped for one second and Jim said to Sandra and Nolan.
“Thank you.”
Jim steps into the light, he feels his body melt away, but not painful. The sound surrounds him at a deafening ear bleeding kind of level, but that doesn’t hurt either. Then the sound the light and all feeling stops and Jim hears a voice.
“No more.”
Sandra and Nolan are standing in the bathroom doorway. The light and the sounds are gone and so is Jim.
“Great! Now we have to wait. Dammitt Sandra!” Nolan yells and walks out of the doorway.
“No more.” Says Sandra, then walks toward the stairs.
© Jeffrey Hale
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