Dorm Showers

School would be out in a week, and then maybe this heat would be bearable. Adam could imagine laying out on a towel, his fingers digging into the sun-warmed sand, able to dip into the icy waves if he found himself uncomfortably warm. But that was a week from now, and a couple hundred miles away. Now, the heat was as oppressive as the work that taunted him from the dry-erase calendar hanging on his wall. Write a paper on Hamlet, Adam. Study for your calculus test, Adam. You’re never going to be able to get all of this work done and you’ll flunk out of college and have to spend the rest of your days working in your dad’s hardware store with him yelling at you for every little thing you do because he hates you and thinks you’re a failure, Adam.The sticky sweat that dripped down his face and his back made him want to scream. 

Adam tried to pull his focus to his computer screen, where the mostly-blank page taunted him. 

Adam Bostick

ENGL 121

Professor. Ramirez

06/03/2019

CLEVER TITLE HERE

The cursor blinked expectantly on the next line, waiting for him to think of something to say about Shakespeare's most famous play. He had only read about a quarter of it, getting bored quickly after the ghost vanished. He had no idea which characters were foils of each other, hadn't even realized that his Professor had not, in fact, been talking about aluminum foil after doing a google search on what it meant for a character to be made of something used in the kitchen. Maybe he shouldn't have skipped class as often as he had, but Adam had only taken the stupid class in the first place because he needed an English credit and he knew a cute boy that was also enrolling. But by the end of the semester he had done no flirting, had discovered that James wasn't even into men (he had a girlfriend, just Adam's luck),  and now Adam was stuck with a ten page paper for his troubles. Due in two days. And he hadn't written a word.

All he wanted was a cool shower. A short reprieve where he could relax under the spray and not worry about stupid things like symbolism or iambic pentameter. It's not like he was getting anywhere, too hot and sticky with sweat to focus on anything but how miserably uncomfortable he was. Adam slammed his computer shut a little harder than necessary, wrapped himself in a towel and grabbed his caddy, sliding his feet into the shower shoes his mother had forced him to buy at the start of the year. He walked down the hall. He opened the bathroom door. As he surveyed the scene, he felt sick. Dark strands of hair trailed along the bathroom walls, but that wasn’t the worst of it. On the floor of the shower it sat in clumps, the dark mass twisted sinisterly through the grates in the drain, leering at him, daring him to step into the shower. To try to feel clean. He didn’t feel much like showering anymore, but he forced himself in.

The water came rushing out of the shower head in an icy blast, and Adam arched his back instinctively to avoid the spray. He stuck a flip-flop clad foot under the water, slowly letting himself adjust to the cold.  He tried to find a place to fix his gaze that wasn't covered in the hair of whoever had showered before him. He slid his leg further under the water, still keeping his torso leaned away. Even with just one limb cooled by the shower, he was starting to feel better. His right hand almost involuntarily moved into the water, ready to brave the cold. And finally, careful not to step on the impossibly large (like seriously how does someone shed that much hair in the shower without coming out bald?) mountain of hair that was piled on the drain, Adam plunged the rest of his body under the shower head and let the freezing water wash over him. He closed his eyes, shutting out the hairy walls that surrounded him, and for a moment he could actually enjoy the cold water. He could pretend he was diving into the ocean, letting the waves crash on top of him.He let himself picture the gold sand, the cloudless blue sky, the familiar sound of seagulls cawing overhead, the sound of - 

"Oh shit! Sorry!" 

Adam opened his eyes in time to see his RA slamming the door shut behind her. Distracted by the heat and the hair, he had forgotten to lock the door. How could he be so stupid! Mortified, Adam shut off the water and wrapped himself in his towel as quickly as possible. He grabbed his caddy and bolted down the hall back to his room, his soap and shampoo still untouched. His shower shoes squeaked with each step, mocking him. 

He got to his door and reached into his shower caddy for his keys. Which weren't there. Of course. Adam darted back to the bathroom, moving as quickly as he could in a towel and flip flops, and searched the floor. No sign of keys. There was only one option. His face bright red, Adam walked to his RA's door. His RA who had just seen him completely naked. Clutching his towel tightly with one hand to make sure he was completely covered, Adam knocked on her door. 

To her credit, Adam's RA didn't say a word about seeing him naked, or about the fact that he was still dripping wet. In a gesture of kindness, out of guilt for walking in on Adam in the bathroom or simply because it was the last week of school, she didn't even make him fill out the lost key form. She just let him back into his room with the universal key and wished him luck on his finals. As the door swung shut and Adam was finally safe in the solitude of his dorm room, he began to sweat.