Better Off Bald
Putting the ow back in shower
What in the actual fuck is that!?
Aman knew his eyes hadn’t deceived him. He was sure, at first, that it had just been a mirage. A mere side-effect of peering through the steamy shower door with conditioner-stung eyes.
“Maybe it’s friendly,” Aman thought, lying to comfort himself.
It seemed to be a furry, brown mass sporting an assortment of limbs that crooked wildly from its body. All of the limbs varied in size with each one ending in a set of gnarled digits. Solid whiskers skewed from some of Its knuckles. Through the glass, Aman also made out what seemed to be an array of googly eyes, a special black irises with hexagonal red pupils version, littered across the top of Its head. If that mass is what Aman could assume was a head.
Aman is notorious for having bloodshot eyes after showering, so much so that he keeps a pair of swimming goggles on his soap rack. But like all men, Aman never does things the easy way. As a result, whether it be conditioner, soap or toothpaste, something will work its way into his eyes; Scraping them with a bittersweet fragrance.
He first noticed It when his toothbrush fell dramatically from its holder to the vinyl floor, dinging the sink on its way down. He startled and turned around, his hands massaging the pomegranate scented conditioner into his scalp. His eyes—already squinting from the fragrant sting—focused on where the toothbrush had fallen… Or at least where Aman thought it had because now there was nothing was there. Just a clean, freshly swept floor panel. “Jean did a really good job there,” He thought admiringly. His eyes panned a little to the right, spotting the fluorescent green handle of the toothbrush sticking out from under the basin.
In a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment, the handle jumped back into shadow cast by the basin. Aman could’ve sworn that he’d seen something at the edge of the shadow right before the toothbrush was snatched into it.
He remained tensed as he watched through the steamy shower door with semi-shuttered eyes. A murky limb started to reach out from the dark under-sphere. It was a long appendage about the width of a pinky finger. The limb was soon joined by another leg of similar proportions. Then another. And finally, a fourth; It seemed endless with Its spindly stalks scratching the bathroom tiles as they stretched searchingly. The humidity in the shower began to make Aman feel lightheaded. Sweat started to stipple along his hairline as he froze in place, anxiety gripping his spine and squishing his stomach.
More of the creature skulked tackily from the dark circle.
It seemed to scan the bathroom, Its many eyes pivoting loosely in their sockets until the moment It turned towards the shower. All of Its eyes locked directly onto Aman’s. His heart pumped its piston faster as It began to creep towards the door, Its body lowering felinely to the floor in preparation to pounce when-
*BANG*
He jumped out of his skin, accidentally nudging open the shower door and emitting a scream as he snatched it shut with a rapidity that he didn’t know he had.
He craned his neck and looked over his shoulder at the shower floor, quickly finding the source of the sound. A bottle of oatmeal & rice milk body wash had fallen from its shelf. A sigh of relief seeped from his lips only for it to hitch halfway through. Snapping his head forward to face the shower door, he glared through as dread dug its way into his stomach, meeting the previous occupant: anxiety.
It was nowhere to be seen.
He hastily rinsed off the lather and leapt from the shower to the bedroom, clearing the floor as though it were lava.
Slamming the door behind him, Aman told himself to relax. He caught his breath then grabbed the handle of the door and cautiously swung it toward himself. He poked his head through the gap and his gaze swept the room in a lighthouse motion; The bathroom appeared empty… There was a second of serenity then It dashed out from beneath the porcelain throne, beelining for him. He slammed the door again and locked it shut, declaring that he would wait for Jean to return from work before telling him about the creature.
Jean arrived soon after and listened as seriously as he could to his husband’s story. He then took it upon himself to thoroughly survey every nook and cranny of the bathroom until he found—what he believed to be the cause of Aman’s fright—the gnarled corpse of a brown recluse, curlicued beneath the toilet bowl. “The shampooed eyes probably didn’t help, my love,” Jean snootily suggested, as he pecked the corner of Aman’s mouth. Despite Jean’s pomp, the discovery comforted Aman and every shower since has been simply copacetic.
A week after the spider’s body was found, the toilet, sink and shower all became clogged. The only comfort of this was that bad things come in threes so Aman & Jean were in the clear now. A plumber came to inspect their pipes that very day, the culprit this time being a glorpy mulchy clump of hair and who-knows-what-else that had “…likely been steeping in the pipes for quite a while,” as postulated by the plumber.
“Funnily enough,” She continued, “This is the third house this week that’s had a clog like this.”
Aman has since invested in a child-friendly shampoo and conditioner. Jean, instead, has opted for a critically lauded pipe cleaner.