i walked into a bathroom.
i first surveyed the layout, the cleanliness. adequate, usable, unconscious. i made sure the door shut on it's own, i didn't want to seem too eager, i wanted to play it cool to the invisible human, the one who's always watching me, the one who's hovering over my shadow. after a soft organic 'click', i pushed the button on the knob that i knew would most likely keep the knob from turning. however, i had no way of testing it, as some doors don't line up and latch correctly, or some locking actions don't adequately keep the knob from turning. the only way of knowing is by being outside the door with the knob button pushed. so i used the bolt latch as well, luckily i had one available in such a situation. i had immediately done this in darkness, as i knew where the location of the knob button and bolt were as habit in this particular bathroom, and had done it before i hit the light switch. as i hit the trigger for the annoying fluorescent lights to illuminate, i also turned the fan on, which was a knob that clicked to denote it's functioning, and seemed to get louder with a clockwise turning; i left it in the middle. i walked over to the toilet, though i'd been standing at the spot long enough messing with the fan that the urinal flushed, which happened because that same spot was directly in front of the urinal and it was a proximity-sensor flushing one. what a waste, what a surprise, what a mistake of engineering in choice and location of urinal. nonetheless, i walked to the toilet, looked at myself in the mirror first, fixed my hair the the invisible human, still there, always there. i cleaned off the toilet seat by wiping it off with toilet paper even though it was spotless. as i sat, i noticed the sink mirror was directly in front of me, which made me feel that the invisible human was watching me, it felt uncomfortable, i turned my head to the side and ignored it as best i could.
i then did what i came into the bathroom to do. afterward, i checked over my entire body in the mirror, my pants back, my shoes, my hair, my teeth, my skin blemish that had appeared a couple days ago but hadn't done much but fester under the skin. i extracted some fuzz from my sweater. i made sure my pants hung correctly and comfortably down past my knee to my shoe top. i washed my hands with warm water, turning on the hot side first, then just a little of the cold side, mixing them to perfection. i used light soap, as i didn't like the feel and smell of this soap as compared to my home's soap, the way it dried out my skin and made me smell just barely perfumed. i used just enough soap to feel 'cleansed'. i dried off with two paper towels, even though one would've sufficed, but i decided that i'd rather be overly dry than not dry enough, for some reason. i put the soiled towels on the trash bin, but the bin had a top door that wasn't triggered by the slight weight of the towels. so i pushed down to make sure the towels went into trash with ease, but felt slightly dirty about it. before unlocking the door, i flushed the toilet again to further clean the toilet, giving it some time to soak, and leaving it just a little cleaner for the person who would come after me. i flushed the toilet this time with my shoe'd foot, as previously i had done it with my hand. before unlocking the door, i took one deep breath in, then a quick one out, then another one out. i unlocked the doors and turned off the light, left the fan on.
i wonder what the year will bring.
