You've been looking in the back of your closet, coats and pants held at bay by your shoulders while you pull a box from the back wall when you notice a hole bored into the wooden paneling,your spring cleaning put on hold by the sound of running water and damp air falling from the opening. Pressing your face to the wood you see a bathroom with white tile walls and a white ceramic tub. You keep looking. A woman enters the frame wrapped in a grey terry cloth robe, your leg begins to fall asleep kneeling at the base of your closet, her terry cloth robe begins to fall her shoulder blades spackled with blue and yellow bruises her arms scars criss-cross her back like new roads paved over old. you keep watching. the grey terry cloth is pooled line a grey ocean holding more than shadows carrying memories and holes left by the same person who left bruises and scars. she steps into the tub white curtain closing behind her, wet smudges of dirt are left where her feet were being held by the tile floor. this is when you pull your head away disgusted with your actions your choices to continue watching the woman on the other side of the hole, then vowing to cover up the hole at once. After gathering the necessary tools spackle paint and tape you kneel to patch the opening. this is when you need to get to work but temptation begs you to look one last time at this enigma. So giving in one last time you stoop to look your face pushed against wood nose scrunched to get a clearer picture to get a better look . She stands still under steaming river of clean her shadow cast wide against the white curtain when you hear her bathroom door creaks and a pair of black boots and blue jeans enter silently like a shadow crushing the grey terry cloth sea. Stil you keep watching. your eyes climb this new figure taking in his black sweatshirt and gloved hands holding a glimmering steel hammer He lifts the hammer preparing to strike the woman.
The scene pauses, what do you do.
You yell to try to warn her right, to save this poor woman in danger.
Or do you stay silent . because when the black boots are finished with her they could come after
You. Do you call the police, would they get there in time. would it matter.
But what if it's all some crazy foreplay, and they find you watching that you didn't stop watching
What if….
There's a knock on your front door ,you look back through the hole the grey terry cloth sea is gone now, white porcelain is covered in crimson waves pulled and diluted by the running tap an arm hangs over the edge of the tub fingernails hold black fibers from the black sweatshirt, no new bruises have had time to form. There's a bang at your front door. What do you do now.
