A Long Cold Shower
A short story
Jonah was lying on his back, curled up in the shower booth. It was not a heart attack as he had been expecting. It was a stroke. It could not have happened at a worse time, as his wife Natasha was not home.
After his fortieth birthday, Jonah had never taken a shower or bath when he was home alone. He even refrained from using the toilet unless absolutely necessary. He never made his habit known to others, even to his wife. He was embarrassed to admit that he was scared.
His mother, Susanna, had been discovered hours after her death. Jonah had been fifteen years old. What still haunted him after sixty-five years was her face. Her eyes and mouth wide open, her facial skin red like a well-steamed dumpling, and hot water dropping from the shower to hit her forehead. Steam and stench filling the whole bathroom. She had been only forty years old. She had stayed alone for hours after the heart attack in the shower.
Jonah had been afraid. He had been afraid that he would die young, alone in the bathroom. He had been afraid that he would be discovered hours later, naked and dripping feces without any dignity, like his mother did. As he aged, his fear grew bigger. He no longer feared dying young since he was young no more. It was more about being scared to die in a bestial manner.
Jonah, no matter how hard you try, you will die like just like your stinking mom, the only difference being that this time your teenie-weenie balls will be rubbing on the shit. A voice would visit him sometimes. He did his best to ignore it, but it was always there. He began to pray in secret that a peaceful death in bed would be granted to him, and sometimes before going to bed even took purgative and went to the toilet to empty himself inside, just in case.
On his eightieth birthday, his worst fear finally caught him. He had already been somewhat used to his urinary incontinence. Though psychologically humiliating, diapers had been enough to protect his dignity in secret. This morning as he woke up, however, he felt his bottom wet and knew right away that it was not urine. His wife Natasha was still asleep. Buying diapers when she was by his side had been embarrassing enough. This time it was even more so.
For years, Natasha had been using the master’s bathroom while the guest’s bathroom had been given to Jonah unless someone was visiting. Jonah did not come out of the guest’s bathroom until Natasha left home to pick up the birthday cake and buy groceries. He planned to take a shower, wash his pajama pants, hang them to dry somewhere where they would not be seen, and throw away his underwear before she returned.
Now Jonah could not move the right side of his body at all. Cold water was running on his body. His mother had always taken a hot, long shower. Hot enough that one’s skin may get burnt if he or she stays long enough in the shower. He had thought that was the reason why she had gotten a heart attack. In return, Jonah always took a cold, short shower. No exception was made even in the middle of the winter.
Jonah’s birthday was in January. He had no clue how long he had been down in the shower, under the pouring cold water. His thinking was unclear.
Your mom died red, and you will die blue, said the voice. He floundered like a fish out of the pond to ignore the voice. His heart was racing. He could hear the pounding in his head.
The first thing that came to his mind was that he should turn off the shower so that he would not slowly freeze to death. The shower booth had a glass threshold. There was no way he could go over it when he could not stand up.
The tap was over his feet. He tried to lift his left foot. It was to no avail. No matter how hard he tried, his foot could never get close enough, high enough.
He noticed his shit-stained pajama pants hanging on the glass door of the shower. He kicked the door as hard as he could. Albeit all his might, the door merely opened slightly and closed back. He tried again. The pajama pants stayed where it was.
Ooh, the shit-stained old man wants his shit-stained pants back to put them back on, the voice said.
With difficulty, he crawled a bit to the glass door. He began to shiver. The glass his side was touching felt so cold. He hit the glass door with his torso. The whole shower box began to shiver. He stopped for a moment. If the whole glass wall fell down, he would surely get injured badly or even get killed.
He lay down on his back again to think. Wouldn’t it be better to stay still and wait until Natasha comes back? Then he remembered something. Seated on the toilet, he had been too occupied with figuring out how to clean things up without her noticing and did not carefully consider what she had said through the closed door. However, she had said something about George, Lizzy and Chuck.
George was their son-in-law, and Lizzy and Chuck were their grandchildren. Come to think about it, Natasha had not been driving for some years. It would mean that George had come to pick her up. What was that talk about Lizzy and Chuck then?
Lizzy and Chuck will come find you and cry in front of your shit-stained ass, of course! The voice did not miss a chance to mock him once again. He began to talk himself to push the voice away in his mind.
“Lizzy and Chuck… Lizzy and Chuck… Why would Natasha mention Lizzy and Chuck?” He could not properly pronounce each word clearly, but trying to move his facial muscles helped him think better.
“George will go to the mall with Natasha, and then they will pick up Lizzy and Chuck.”
What his conclusion meant was straightforward. He could not wait for them to come home and find them. They would come home hours later. With cold water from the shower, hypothermia would kill him before the stroke did. He had to do something by himself.
He had to be careful so that the pajama pants would fall inside the shower booth, not outside. Suddenly, he wanted to hit his head to punish himself for being foolish.
“No Jonah, there is no time to fight with yourself. Think, talk, and stay with me,” murmured Jonah. He pushed the glass door with his hand and managed to put it between the door and the wall. With his fingers, he continued to swing the glass door towards him. He could see the pajama pants slowly droop closer to him. At last, it dropped on his face. He felt like throwing up and coughed.
I am amused. I never thought you wanted to get shit-faced before you die. Jonah heard the voice chuckle. He did not talk back. He crawled a bit towards the shower and tried to hit the tap with the pants. They touched the tap, but could not turn it off.
It was getting hard to breathe as if the cold was clutching his lungs. He let go of the pants and rubbed his body with one hand. He was trying his best to stay where the cold water could not get to him, but it was still freezing in the shower booth. He grabbed the pants and hit the tap a few more times. It did not work again. He felt like closing his eyes and falling asleep.
A thought slipped into his mind. Maybe, the last thing he could do was to crawl back to where the water fell and lie there, face down, to let the cold water wash his bottom even after he died. That would let George, Lizzy, Chuck, and Natasha discover him clean and without having to look at his shrunken penis the moment they opened the bathroom door.
That’s still better than your mom, whispered the voice. You can’t run away, but you can still keep some more dignity.
The shower booth was spinning. Jonah desperately wanted to close his eyes and give up. He had been running away from this moment for more than sixty years. He now just wanted it to end. He crawled.
Under the cold water, he found himself still clutching on the pajama pants. He was disgusted. As the pants got wet together with him, the stains on them became more obvious. He was just about to throw them away. The pants felt much heavier than before.
“Wait, Jonah!” Jonah exclaimed.
Yeah, you forgot to wash your face. Throw the pants away and wash your face quick, shit-face, the voice cut in. Jonah, however, could ignore it completely.
Jonah tried to turn off the tap with the wet pants. It was not easy to hit the tap as the pants were now heavier and Jonah was losing his strength, but he could see the tap moving. After a few more trials, he could turn off the cold water.
“Now how’s that!” Jonah shouted. His body condition was definitely getting worse, but he felt better. Then he slapped his own face with his hand.
“My murmur sounds terrible, but I’m going to keep talking to keep you awake. You okay with that, Jonah? Good. Now sorry, but you deserved that slap. The first thing we should have thought was to get out. Why were you so obsessed with the shower anyway?”
Below the shower door was the glass threshold, a few inches high. Jonah was still aware that he would not be able to simply go over it with his half-paralyzed body. He could not either stand up or even sit up straight. If he tried to crawl over it, his weight would break the glass. Would he still be able to crawl out of the bathroom after shards of glass got embedded in his flesh?
No you won’t, you stupid old pants-shitter! The voice hissed.
“If I weren’t an old pants-shitter, I won’t. you are right.” Jonah muttered. It was the first time in his life that he talked back to the voice. “But to my luck, I am an old pants-shitter.”
He slowly crawled back towards the shower booth door and pushed it away. The door stayed open. He put the pants on top of the threshold and fell on it. The glass cracked. Then he crawled over. A few pieces of glass poked him, but it did not hurt too bad.
Jonah turned back and picked up his pajama pants. The knob of the bathroom door was too high to reach with his hand only, but he once again succeeded in opening it with the shit-stained pajama pants. Then he crawled out all the way to reach the phone. He made a call and passed out.
Natasha, George, Lizzy, and Chuck met Jonah in the hospital. The cake eventually went bad and no one could eat it, but besides that, everything turned out rather well. After coming back home, Jonah began to use a wheelchair. He could no longer go to the bathroom by himself and sometimes even shat his pants without knowing it. Jonah, however, would openly ask for help from others without feeling ashamed. He died a few years later surrounded by his family, peacefully in his bed.
(1945 words)
This is my second story for GWC ‘23, judged by
and . I am doing this together with , , , and , and judging from their first stories, they are all very good writers. Please go read their stories too!Meanwhile, as of now, I have no idea if my story this week is good or not. The second challenge of GWC ‘23 was to write a “bottle episode “. I remembered that I should write a “story with one character in one setting for the entire story”, but forgot that I should also give my “readers the urgent desire to get out of there”. After finishing up a cozy story, I got a notification that tagged me in his note, and reading comments from Eric and my other competitors, I knew something was wrong. So on the last day I could write (today!), I wrote a whole new story in less than four hours.
Today’s lesson: read the criteria! When you finish reading them, read them again! Make sure you read them thoroughly!
If you enjoyed my work, you can buy me a cup of tea. I am not a coffee person, by the way.
What a premise, Hyun Woo! And major credit to you for doing such a reversal at the last minute. That takes guts. I also appreciate the story showing how even simple things can become so hard for or elderly loved ones; even someone who might seem “pathetic” can actually be heroic and triumphant. An important lesson.
You weren't kidding when you said your gf think we might see your obsession. This is the most time I have ever read ‘shit’ in my life and not the cursing kind.
This was one hell of a good laugh, glad it ended well.
But I love it when the mundane things are made to become more than they are. I laughed so hard I almost woke those who still need to sleep.
Thank you for sharing such a piece.