He had already been laying awake a while when he heard an initial sound. A deep boom, almost forgettable. It would have been unheard if other noises had been around at that time. But this was early morning of a work-day. Judging only by the level and angle of the daylight which was coming through the curtains, warming and illuminating the bedroom. He had been estimating that the time hour must have been nearing 9, 10am, maybe. He had this day free from the obligations of his employment and other things. He had no plans, but he assumed he would get around on this day to this or that which had sat on his mental back burner.
As his head had lain flat, his eyes aimed up directly at the white-ish texture, he realized he had been looking awhile with his mind not paying any attention at all -the most minimal amount of processing and interpreting; his thoughts were still a little free as they were adjusting from sleep and unconscious, unremembered dreaming that it does at the end of a circadian cycle… But now, after the boom interrupted all that he been not doing, his nascent, human potential was withdrawn early, to figure something out. Later he would, while recalling these moments, think, “I could have just stayed laying there.”
He lifted his head, curving his back and pushing more weight onto his buttocks and legs. Then, upright, he only rotated his neck to turn his head on it. All parts were still supported by the mattress underneath him. He had turned to glance now away from the curtained, nearly floor-to-ceiling windows to the right; and toward the left at where the door in the corner and a desk, chair, and other things sat, waiting to be utilized for respective purposes. They were all only potential just as his whole self was now, as his mind tried, barely successfully, to do a thing which was to be investigatory about the noise, the feeling. To figure something out or to guess what to anticipate.
As he stood up, the blanket last part, grasping only so much as a dead hand would, slid off from touching the last smallest part of the clothes he had worn to sleep. Contact was broken forever. Just then, right as he looked up from his feet steadied on the floor, the few electronic devices all flickered at the same time. Each came back at slightly different speeds but all within 1 second or so. He noticed that detail. The human brain could and did notice millions of things that take place in less time than the quickest, fleeting moment. Sometimes that’s bad for them.
Before he had time to finish inventorying this incident completely (as part of his investigation, so the boys down at the neural forensic station could later unseal, handle, examine it and collate and theorize…seconds later in real time), forces behind the window pushed through it, undoing it, and then reached his body, just stood up, into the desk and other things. He was only half-fallen. The wall behind the things stopped him, holding him up as it rapidly became a 3rd side which completed the Isosceles completed by his body and the floor.
He felt a heat that was, besides his shock of being roughed-up, pleasant. Not terrible. Like getting into a car after a long hot day in a parking-lot, and, before any cooling technology can make any perceivable difference, a person can just feel neutral: their body temperature seems to be the same as the air in the container in which they find themself. And it’s like a comfortable womb, before, that is, the body can react by sweating, and becoming uncomfortable.
But waves of air were plural and kept arriving in succession. He realized what had occurred and instead of sorrowing as he had before in life on occasion that he had truly considered the danger or possibility of this happening someday, his brain worked for him. His conscious feelings or reasoning, perhaps still not initiated coming out of sleep, did not rule -and this luckily for survival of his self in the future.
He steadied himself for a 2nd time with both feet on the floor, using one forearm to arise from the crumple position. In doing this he pushed more flakes of stuff into his skin through the material between it and his arm, but he did not notice this now. He walked over bits of stiff on the thin carpet, just passing the left corner of the bed and turned right in front of the TV display on its stand that was just in front of it. He turned sharp left to the bathroom entrance.
Its floor was still cool as expected. It lacked any signs of extraordinary disturbance. He only noticed a single item out of place or presumably fallen due to the blast that came after the boom. But it was a bar of bath soap. Its green, streaked body lay in the tub. But this was found there more often than not anyway, as he always rested it on top of the metal frame that held the sliding doors that blurred the view into the tub and shower. He didn’t think about the fallen soap but did wonder why hadn’t the very glass-like material of the shower doors broken as the windows had. His brain was unable to understand at the moment that there was a clear reason why they hadn’t. He had some wits about him but not others. Luckily (or perhaps not, considering later, ongoing incidents…) the ones leading to survival operated in this immediate ordeal.
He adroitly moved the unbroken doors, sliding them away, bent over, and turned the knob to begin filling the tub. He did not test the temperature as one habitually does, splashing one’s hand in the little flood released and falling from the faucet head. It wasn’t cold, ‘though. Here in this region, municipal water never came out very cold at all. Later on, he would muse, appreciating greatly that it had come out at all, freely, without any consideration by its enjoyers, and barely ever requiring anything but the most ephemeral effort by way of unwitnessed exchanges and people never known constructing systems not seen but everlastingly dependable.
He took off his clothes. His name was Relen.
He got in to the tub barely a full 5 minutes, that is, 300 seconds, after he had removed himself from bed. After soaking himself, descending his body as deep as he could to cover all of it besides up from the nostrils to the crown of his head -and then submerging that all, as well, and then using both cupped hands to splash and splash his face and head – he washed his hair, what there was of it, naturally or anymore; he wondered if substances like shampoo and conditioner could be affected, were dangerous to use. “Will this make it worse for me, later?” he wondered. But as he splashed more to remove its suds, he felt belligerently that it was not his fault if he didn’t know. He was doing his best, and thought his future self couldn’t rightly blame or hold him, pre-him, at that future point, accountable. How would anybody know in this situation, or be expected to know?
He got out from the tub, made it begin to drain itself, and reached for a towel on that was hanging on a bar mounted above the toilet. The water following its path down the tube made its usual noise. But in the moment, hearing it struck him as different; unexpected. Maybe he was shook: maybe the boom had affected his hearing so the silence of being by himself here had been turned somehow more silent, biologically.
To his hands the towel felt odd. It felt dry in some way that it had never been before. Its texture was crispy or seemed to exhibit less give when handled, folded. “It doesn’t crumple like a human body pushed against a wall,” he thought. He laughed at this; at himself.
He dried himself, getting all the spots where drops hide: behind ears, on lower-back, in between toes. He thought to brush his teeth and again wondered if compounds like paste especially retain harmful particles… Would he lose his teeth if he brushed and rinsed right now? What a crazy world.
He did brush. And, because he recalled hearing somewhere than in case of radiological exposure, one should wash their clothes, and they could probably be re-used if need be, he washed them in the sink using the green soap bar he had retrieved from the now empty tub.
He couldn’t dry the clothes using the electric hair-dryer present. So, he wrung them out, twisting each article this way then that- and then repeated the process of twisting each but twisted together, interwoven with a medium-sized, theretofore unused towel. This worked surprisingly well. He put them on, wrinkled -this he could see by looking at his reflection in the large shards of broken mirror that had remained stuck to whatever backing the whole had been placed on when manufactured.
He looked in his own eyes. Some moisture had formed but not enough to break the edge of the eyelids and to fall as tears. He used the towel to remove these drops, or, that is, prevent them.
He left the room. His had been a one-night stay, after all; check-out was 11:00.
The IDIOTRIX 