I push back from my keyboard. My hands rub into my eyes. I grind the heel of my palm against my eye-lids until they begin to water. There is a short-story I remember where the narrator does this same action only the intent is to see colors. I try to remember where I read that story, I am convinced it was in a black literature course but I cannot place which one. The moment makes me feel like I was born into the wrong body, that I am not what I am meant to be.
The clock on the computer tells me what the window confirms. My day is gone and outside the darkness has landed in the backyard. I wanted to prove my brother wrong about being forty and living in the same room I grew up in. Since then I have realized the years have passed faster than success; instead, after he died I moved into his old bedroom. It is larger than the room of my youth but he still fills the space completely.
The day is ended and I have eaten little more than several bites of chicken and a slowly growing wall of energy drinks. Focus is required to lift myself out of my chair. Walking into the bathroom I turn on the shower and pull out my cellphone. Two text messages run across the top of the screen both from a childhood friend who wants to know if I am free. His last attempt is time-stamped as eight o'clock and I cannot find the energy to reply. I am tired, too tired even for distraction from my anxiety.
As I strip my clothes from myself I avoid the mirror. I do not like my skin. It is pale and pocked with angry crimson marks from sores and old burnished indigo scars. Instead I wait until the steam fills the reflection and I am only a form in the haze.
Under the heat of the water I think about the paper I am writing. Structuring the argument, watching for reflexive use of passive voice, trying to remember synonyms for words that I know have come to dominate the vocabulary. The work feels more manageable with the hot water running against my face. For a moment the anxiety diminishes and I begin to compose the draft in my head. I breath in the steam and the scent of various liquid soaps that are bright and cheerful colors. Translucent shades of blue and orange stacked in front of me and behind me.
As the water turns cold I quickly wash and exist the shower. Mechanical motions take over as I dry myself and dress in the clothes I have worn all day. Looking at my phone it is nearly eleven and I am exhausted.
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Everything turns red in the bathroom. The mop sucks up the color but does not remove it. I feel the bottoms of my shoes sticking to the tile and can see the crimson curling up along the rubber. The color only pushes around the space. It remains thick and resistant. I soak the old mop-head in the bathtub I have filled. A bucket did not suffice.
The water in the tub was clear and now it is pink. I spin around the mop for a moment to try and clean it before heaving the wet mass down against the tile again. I am angry at Bob. Angry at this mess, angry that he did not tell me, angry that he did not allow me to help. I am irrational in the moment and I understand this. This task is not easy and I begin to sweep the mop in broad arches along the tile. I remember what it is like to create art. I have not created any since Bob began to create his own. He is larger than I am and I cannot have my art in his shadow. The mop gives me my art back as I press the clean beige color of the tile through the red.
I begin with a horizon line of deep pink on the blank dark canvas of the floor. My driving strokes create formless blocks towering upwards and I cut a clear band to the tile between them. Soaking the mop again I study how the image sits within the frame of the quarter-round surrounding the base-board of the wall. I briefly wonder what the reaction would be if I did not clean the floor fully. My parents would be upset, Jeanine would be upset, but Bob would be happy. He would want pictures and smile at the work of John created in the removal of his red.
Water dropping from the mop pulls my attention back to the floor. I begin to drizzle the pink stained drops along the tall formless blocks. The splashes clean the red to the tile. My hands take a controlled motion with the weight of the mop, directing the water to where I need it to be. They form gaps in the blocks, windows of light shining out of a darkening red night. I lower the mop carefully trying to guide the hanging ends of wet fabric to define the blocks into buildings. I am imperfect and so is my attempt, I wince where the line shakes and grimace at the blotches that water begins to form.
Drawing back I realize what I am doing. I am failing at both jobs given to my by Jeanine. Leaning the mop against the wall I use the toes of my bottom-red shoes to peel them from my feet and step over the short space into the clean hall. I do not reach for my cell-phone. Instead I step into my mother's bedroom, large and warm, comfortable and soaked in memories of when the world seemed much smaller and everyone much larger. Wiping my hand over the phone on her nightstand I notice how long it has gone unused, the dust is dark against my fingers and I rub it momentarily into ashen gray.
Lifting the phone I dial the number. I listen to the dialing tone and imagine how this conver