She decided to clean herself.
It was going to take long. But she had to start; to stay like this was unbearable. She turned the doorknob of the bathroom door all the way to the right, pushed it in, paused a second, and stepped inside.
She turned on the light, hesitating just a bit. The bathroom floor was cold and white under the skin of her feet. She breathed in. Out. She began undressing.
Her motions were infused with unthinking panic: the entirety of her consciousness was focused on the subsequent motion, the next thing to do; her muscles provided the scaffolding. She knew how to clean herself, and even though she couldn't fully comprehend the extent of the filth on her person, and probably wouldn't be able to continue if she did, she ripped off her clothes and kicked them distractedly into a small corner of the bathroom. She would burn them later on, she thought. Or maybe put them in grey plastic bag and tie the top and throw it somewhere she would never have to see it again or think about it again.
She shut the door behind her. And locked it. And double checked.
She peeled back the orange shower curtain, the rings making a skidding sound as they were roughly bunched up on the rod. She stepped into the bathtub, now fully naked. Goosebumps ravaged the smallness of her undress, both in anticipation and in post-mortem. She drew the curtain shut, to the left of her.
Now she was all alone, in this six feet by one feet by seven feet space. The light from the solitary bathroom bulb, that hung above the bathroom mirror shone from behind the shower curtain, casting candleorange shadows over her familiar body, sticking with greedy satisfaction. She didn't notice them. She reached out and turned the knob of the shower all the way to the right. Water gushed out, fiercely cold. She flinched back, and waited for the water to turn hot, and then very hot, until steam rose out from beneath the orange curtains and frosted over the bathroom mirror. She stepped into steaming stream. And waited. Slowly she began moving her hands, rubbing them over her arms, legs, face, cleaning, cleaning, cleaning, reaching into every crevice and rubbing with her fingers, dislodging, stroking. When she had thus lain the base of the cleansing, she turned off the tap, and reached for the shampoo. The purple plastic cylinder was slippery in her hands. She unplugged the top with her fingernails and emptied a sizeable pool into her cupped palm (the cylinder making a squelching noise as it was crushed), and rubbed it into her hair. She counted to 100. Then, she seized the bar of soap lying in north-west corner of the bath, and started scrubbing herself viciously, until little droplets of blood beaded in crimson streaks across her arms and legs.
She did this for thirty minutes. She looked down at the brown muddy water infused with with the faintest hint of red trailing down her legs and into the drain, and smiled softly, feeling the muscles of her face relax into unfamiliar contours.
Then she turned the shower back on, and eventually the machinery of her mind stopped screaming.
