You find yourself standing in the bathroom. Barefoot on warm tile. Back against the door to the
hallway. Low ceiling.
Light pours in the short window facing south. A little stool sits underneath it, and from that perch you often stare out at the old town across the tracks, at the scorched earth further south, at the
Vurmkirche's spire.
From the seat of the toilet, you face a tiled wall, the shower/bathtub to its right and the block of sink/cabinet to its left. Shit is strewn all over the counter: ointments, sex tools, hormones. You're a mess when Soot's away. Above the sink is a mirror/medicine cabinet, and in its reflection is you: beautiful.
There is a second door in this room, between the sink and the tub,
painted over.
Tiled over.
Something is sketched delicately into the dead center of the tiling:
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. . . .
8 . . . .
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. . . . . . . . .