Shower Thoughts

in

By Anonymous

TW: Kinda Gross

Dear hair clump owner, 

I received your gift. Despite removing my glasses upon entering, I was still able to make out your gracious offering to the shower gods. Nestled tightly into the drain: your coiled mess of follicles. Each strand traveling long treacherous distances…

Under the tension of your brush, or the abrasion of the hard mineral water, each strand now finds itself stalemated between the drain and my feet. 

I’d be lying if I said I wasn't disturbed by the sight, but more often than not it causes me to think about the owner. First in the…I can’t stand this individual kind of way…but then much deeper. 

Did the owner of these strands find themselves showering at 2 or 3AM after an intense study session like me? 

Or rather, did the rush of an early morning and the forethought of the day consume hair owner #1’s brain waves? 

Was the delicately patterned hair mural a means of distraction from the looming exams of midterms week?

Whether I like it or not, the creator of this great and tangled biomaterial probably shares more in common with me than I’d care to know. 

Could they be my friend? 

Long, wavy, brown strands conglomerated at a single knot - too common to tell

But this person possibly listens to The 1975 at odd hours of the night in this ceramic-tiled safe space to thwart the feeling of loneliness and academic isolation

Or find themselves washing off the anxiety of a complex lecture or the exhaustion of a shift at their part-time job

Is the shower, albeit communal, their safe space too? 

It's impossible to know. 

And anyway, this isn’t a punishable offense. It just makes me slightly uncomfortable. But that will happen sometimes in the communal shower.

People will do things that make you uncomfortable. And really warp the way you think and feel about society and the value of others. 

In those moments it's really important to consider their humanity. Humans are flawed individuals.

But not me tho. 

Sincerely, 

The Shower Flooder