Dihydrogen monoxide...

Everyday I wake up and stumble my way in the cold darkness that fills a winter morning. My first objective is to become warm and so I make my way to the panel that controls the central heating. I then stumble my way to the water-closet and urinate. Upon completion of the necessary human task, I sanitise my hands and return to my primary objective. Turning in the small room that the sanitisation of hands takes place, I notice in a small brown rectangular prism in the corner. The interior is tiled and hollow, and the exterior is frosted and in a 70's shade of brown. It's just big enough to fit perhaps two people. Though granted I have only ever seen one person in it at a time.

Abandoning my shivering physical form, curiosity takes hold. I carefully open a door leading into the tiled chamber, taking in the grey hose, the colourful plastic bottles, and the perfumed odour of the air. Placed one above the other were two knobs, one with a blue sticker, one with red. Very similar to those found on the sanitation sink. Curious I twisted the red-stickered knob. A gush of freezing water raced out of a tap-like device connected to the aforementioned hose. It splashed onto the base of the prism, rebounding off the tiled floor and haphazardly wetting me. I was freezing, and began to reach for the knob to turn it off. But suddenly the water became warmer, as if by magic. I began to enjoy the gentle caress of the warmed particles on my skin. Then, just as suddenly as it became warm, the water became deadly hot. Reacting by instinct I twist the other knob, and the amount of water gushing out the tap like device increased violently. I was soaked, but the water had now become pleasantly warm.

I was overcome, at this point, by a feeling. It was a strange feeling that I don't often have - but the warmth of the water was so inviting. I wanted to strip off my pyjamas, and throw myself into the vicious flow of water coming from the tap. So I did. Naked, I flung myself through the gap in the sliding frosted side of the prism, ever so desperate for the pounding embrace of the warm water on my now goose-pimpled skin. I slid the frosted glass closed.

Steam rose from the cascade of water, thickening the air with its warm vapour. I became completely relaxed and comfortable in the noisy pelting of water - it was like a cleansing dance in tropical rain. My mind began to wander from the brown-lit cubical and into the vast expanses of the fields in my mind. They traveled from my latest work in biology, to the cute girl in maths, to the current affairs of the world. Decisions were made, solutions were found and problems seemed lesser as I lathered myself with the exotic aromas from the colourful bottles. Nothing was too sacred to think about in the secluded confines of the watery box.

As I floated through the depths of my mind the water began to age my skin. A series of wrinkles, which I poetically began to examine on my hand. A landscape of ridges....a pock-marked plain...a frenzied....

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING IN THERE? YOU HAVE BEEN IN THERE FOREVER! WHAT'S TAKING YOU SO LONG?!"

The spell was shattered by the harsh tones of my mother's raised voice. Thoughts gushed out of my ears like water that was flowing around me. Just like that I was merely standing beneath an outlet of warm dihydrogen monoxide molecules, in the confines of an ugly brown room, staring at bottles of chemicals and the deflated suds of once proud shampoo. I twisted off the taps, the pleasant rattling of water on water replaced by the lonely drip of the metal drain.

Christopher.

"Everyone who's ever taken a shower has an idea."

Nolan Bushnell