The Aftermath

Is there a name for the line of space between where the ceiling and the standing wall meet? There must be. If I were in construction, I’m sure I would know it like the back of my paint covered trousers.

A man enters the white space. It could be called a bathroom, but there is no bath. Just a standing shower.

If I were a builder, I would know how long it takes to lay and grout five-by-five-inch tiles upon every surface of a hundred-and-twenty square space. As a laymen who can’t caulk over the ident of an Arrow Pin nail, I am not equipped to even guess at the time and labor involved.

A man enters the white space. It is a bathroom, sans a bath. The man is holding a bucket.

Silver seems to be the color of choice for most household fixtures, including spaces like these. If porcelain sinks and tubs are so common, why not porcelain faucets two. It would be harder to make out splotches of tooth paste on a porcelain mirror. Of course, it would be difficult to make out a reflection too. Might be a good idea. For most.

A man enters a bathless bathroom, bucket in hand. There is a silver grate drain at the center of the concave floor.

Building code violations. Is there a book which outlines them all? Is it like the ICD-10 or CPCPS insurance codes that red-eyed billers in hospital basements use to screw over patients, with annual versions published each year?

Does the Bible of Build Code Violations 101 incite as much remorse for the wasted paper spared on reconstructed macabre manuals manufactured with but one or two changes – changes that could have been dispersed electronically? Money. Monies need to be made. I am sure if I were the hospital administrator or lord of construction, I too would demand that we render all materials from the year before null and void.

A man enters a bathroom with a slightly concaved floor. In the man’s arms are a collapsible bucket perched atop a medical stool. For safety reasons, there are no shower curtains. No baths to drown in, or stumble out of. Not even the shower head, a water scum covered plate flush against the ceiling, can be reached to repurpose into a –

I miss carpet. What could I have done with carpet? I am sure carpenters – are those the ones who lay down carpet? – could lay them down with a nail or staple or glue gun.

A man is at the center of a bathroom. He rests a collapsible bucket right above the shower drain. The man sets a plastic seat stool down, its rubber bottoms silent on the tile, right in front of the bucket. By the magic of someone else’s freedom, water wheezes out from above.

“It is illegal to use this product in anyway outside of its intended purpose.”

A man sits on a stool under a waterfall. The bucket at his feet collects some of the water.

“It is illegal to use this product outside of its intended purpose,” but what about creativity?

A man sits under a waterfall and collects the run off in a bucket.

It is illegal to use some products outside of their intended purpose. Even when you have some very creative ideas. You have to let those go. Waste them.

A man sits under a waterfall and here’s birds wheezing above. They stop the water from continuing to fall with their wings.

“Is there a name for the line of space between where the ceiling and the standing wall meet?” There is this security guard I once spoke to, big burly black guy with chipped teeth all throughout his sad smile. Looked like he could have been in construction, in a previous life at least. He was working in the basement of a hospital, near the billing department. “You mean the joint?” I nodded and grinned like I was remembering the name of the joint, the space where two surfaces meet. Like a body. Like what the construction workers of the human body above that basement knew all along.

A man sits on a stool in a bathroom. The shower head above simulates the rush of a waterfall as it cascades down his back and over his shoulders. His cotton tunic turns dark grey under the watercolor paint brush of streams of droplets. The bucket at his feet collects the red and brown runoff.

If doctors are like construction workers, coming in after a storm, shouldn’t they be able to put the place back together again? Rebuild homes and lives. Is shot glass as hard to put together as shot bodies.

A man enters the white space. It is a bathroom, sans a bath. The man is holding a bucket.

If I were a doctor, I would know how long it takes to layout – I mean put together – five-by-five peoples laid out like tiles in a hundred-and-twenty square space.

A man enters the white space. It is a bathroom, sans a bath. He washes and he turns everything red.

Is there a book that red-eyed insurance billers have to use specifically for nail-gun violations? Do they know that it is illegal to use some products outside of their intended purpose? Monies need to be made. I am made history. All ICD and CPCS materials from the year before will be rendered null and void before September.

A man enters a bathless bathroom, bucket in hand. There is a silver grate drain at the center of the concave floor. For safety reasons, there are no shower curtains. No baths to drown in, or stumble out of. This man can’t even control the operation of the shower head above, nor can he reach it. And yet, still covered in his grey cotton shirt and pants, he is sat beneath its stream. He washes. There is no bucket, no tool to be repurposed outside of its intended purpose, and still, the floor below him is painted red.