The Bathroom

By Asad Zaidi

The bathroom was large by anyone's standards and the tasteful ingenuity with which it had been designed made it appear downright enormous. White seemed to be the running theme here. The colour lent in the illusion of space.

The floor was all marble and of a shade teetering between pure white and eggshell. It was a warm colour that did not look as if it would chill the skin on contact, even in mid-winter. The floor seemed to melt into the milky walls; corners did not exist in this room.

It was a bright and airy room. There was a large window in one of the walls, partially obscured by a thin, papery veil of a curtain which fluttered joyously in the subtle breeze. Large, rectangular skylights had been cut into the ceiling and crisp sunlight descended from them, bathing the room.

Against one of the walls sat an ivory sink with a cool, metal tap. A vivid, pink bar of soap rested at its edge. Above the sink a large, gleaming, oval mirror clung to the wall, an intricately carved ivory frame encircling the glass.

At the opposite end of the room - contrasting sharply with everything else - was a handsome table of polished mahogany. A gramophone perched atop it as it poured the ululating notes of Mozart's Ninth into the air.

Right in the middle of the vast bathroom stood a large white bathtub, perfect in its unblemished austerity. In it lay a little girl, her skin almost visible through the wet, white shift she wore. Her face was slightly blue.

She was dead.

The man gazed briefly at the girl. He then selected another colour from his palette and turned to face his easel, humming along to the music as his brush swept the canvas.

The bathtub gurgled as the last of the water escaped down the drain, carrying the girl's fiery red hair along with it.