Naked, except for red rubber boots, I turn the shower faucet full blast and scalding water fills the room with steam. Mist covers mirrors, walls, and ceiling. Droplets collect on the ceiling above me and turn the paint brown before plopping to the floor. Some of them drop on me. My skin burns, first brown, then red. My breathing, no longer a harsh shallow rasp, eases, and quiets as moist air fills my lungs.

Under the stream of water, with my eyes closed, I touch my breast. My mind fills with words, "Mist. . .dreamed along the hills?" Perhaps the words of Hawthorne.

The red boots fill with soapy water, overflow, and slosh when I move. Pacing back and forth in the tub, I pull back the shower curtain, and water sprays into the room and onto the floor, saturating a blue bath mat.

The steam, acrid and heavy with sulphur, forms a primordial ooze flooding the floor, and creatures spawn in the swirling tide. Thousands of silver fish swim out of the lagoon toward the South. Rounding the corner, they disappear into my bedroom. They school under the bed, depositing eggs on little balls of dust, forming a new land mass.

I sit on the edge of the tub and carefully empty each of the red boots before placing them on a rack to dry.

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