I push the battered door slightly, letting it creak and groan away from the wall it has been glued to for so long. Sunlight rushes to illuminate every corner of the musty and dingy room. At the centre of the room, there is only a layer of dust and grime over the faded tiles where there used to be a barren wooden bed. It would be more accurate to call it a long table, actually. In the corner across from the door was a tap that had a long hose attatched to its mouth. Surely, it couldn’t still work, could it? My gaze follows the end of the hose connected to the tap, through its coils, to the other end, where a small stream of water drips from the rim of the cut rubber tube forlonly onto the lined tiles, splitting and running down each crevice in the striped tile, like how a tear falls from the edge of my eye after clinging on desperately, skipping and cracking through my wrinkled skin. My feet grows roots that run deep into the ground, deep down, keeping me rooted there. Invisible hands grip every part of me all of a sudden, rendering me incapable of movement. A strangled gasp escapes my throat as a feeling of overwhelming paralysis crashed over me.
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“Patti, dear, would you please fill up the bath for me please?” I pause to call out, before returning to my incoherent mutterings of where I put my schedule notebook. “Done and dusted, darling. I’ve already tossed in some lavendar and sage as it was running.” I smile softly.
I carefully step onto the mat leading into the bathroom, hearing the faint click of the door as it shuts behind me. Inhaling, I let the visuals on my bathtub run over me. Seemingly meaningless lines dance across the smooth warm exterior of the tub, swirling and arching gracefully to form the ever so faint shape of a human face. They extend on, all around it, elegantly drifting into peaceful waves, like the calming tide of a familiar ocean. Yet more lines cross and overlap, resembling the wind, the spring breeze that cleanses and heals you, the cherry on the top. Gingerly testing the steaming water with just the tip of my toe, I let myself sink in once I am guaranteed of its perfect temperature. Leaning my head against the head of the tub, my eyes flutter shut, as I welcome the fragrance of the lavendar and sage into every pore on my skin.
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Guttural screams echoe endlessly from the tiny room. They ring hauntingly through the entire compound, only to be muted abruptly, leaving a deathly note of silence behind.
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I stammer, stutter, and choke on my own words as I ramble incohesively, a string of meaningless words of utter desperation. I will not allow myself to be laid in that… that…
A ear-splitting roar rips from my body as I feel a hand push me towards the tub. The gentle nudge feels like a shove as I tumble over my weak and gone legs, hands clutching at the edge of the tub, my nose a mere centimetre away from the clear crystal-like surface of the liquid. Only the sounds of my ragged breaths could be heard as I stare back at the mess of crazy tufts of hair, eyebrows that have raised all the way into the hairline, eyes wide with an expression that can only be described as madness.
“Eric… It’s just a bath… What’s wrong?” the hoarse and horrified voice of my wife floats over. All I can hear is the ringing in my own head as a single tear leaves the sharp tip of my chin and crashes into my reflection, distorting it, the ripples seem to be fleeing from my horrorstruck reflected visage.
“I… I can’t… Patti… I can’t…” I can’t. The only thought that is in my head as I screw my eyes shut, groaning through gritted teeth while the coldness of the water sheets and shimmyes over every inch if me. Only I can feel its icy claws reach deep through my flesh, coursing through my every vein, before reaching my heart and brain. Even getting struck by lightning couldn’t shock me as much as this does
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Every muscle in me is completely relaxed. I lift up my arm and dangle it over the edge, letting my fingers run over the hardened paint, feeling and following every stroke that my brush made, visualizing the painting in my head as I continued to feel further down the sides of the tub, the tattoo I gave it to remind me of the fear I overcame.
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Clutching my paintbrush in one hand, palette in the other, I manage to lift my rooted foot off the floor to take a clumsy step forward. I sink to the floor where the edge of the table would’ve been. My brain conveniently prvides me a horrifyingly accurate hologram of the scene. I can picture the cold and distant faces, their merciless pits for eyes, the thundering boom of the commander’s voice, prompting the two soldiers in the other side of me to spring into action. One slaps the dripping wet and soggy piece of burlap sack over my mouth and the other drags over the hose, water gushing up and falling forth like a fountain. No, there was nothing peaceful or beautiful in the way he stuck the end, still violently spitting water at a frightening speed over the scratchy cloth. Water shot down my throat straight into my stomach and lungs, setting them on fire. Ignoring the excruciating pain of my broken bones, I thrash against my restraints on the table, gasping, coughing, screaming, then whimpering like a pathetic creature once the pipe was taken off. The floor had been soaked with all the water that had cascaded out of me. Now my fingers reach to brush away some of the dust, and the cold tiles still feel as though that water had just dired, after all these years. I lift my brush, and stroke, caress the ground, imprinting it with the sight, so familiar, that greets me everyday when I cleanse myself. One tattoo for where my fear was born, and another for where it was overcome.
This was a short piece of writing I did inspired by the movie. It’s not in chronological order, and it also hasn’t been edited much. I just wrote it in such a hurry to get the idea down that I didn’t focus much on continuity. Basically, it describes how Lomax got his fear of water (the aquaphobia is a figment of my imagination), and about how he suffers from extreme PTSD from the torture, then after he overcomes it, how he had painted his bathtub with this painting that would serve to remind him of the fear he overcame. He visits the tiny room where the toture happened, and while revisiting and crying, he actually paints the floor of the room with the same painting as the one on his bathtub, choosing to paint it here to mark the place where his fear was born (the painting is also a figment of my imagination, it wasn’t shown in the movie and didn’t actually happen). I hope it wasn’t too clear and far-fetched, and I hope you enjoyed!
"Forgotten"- A Writing Journey 