Daily Writing Challenge, Day 7

Thanks for letting me use your bathroom,” said Tuatara.

Tuatara preferred not to use bathrooms outside of her home. At home, she kept two stacks of books on a shelf next to her toilet, a leftover from when she still lived with her family and had no alone time except stolen moments locked in bathrooms. But she had been yelled at or presumed to be having diarrhea one too many when she carried paperbacks in her purse, so non-home toilets remained a puzzle.

“No worries,” said Elicen.

Even so, she trusted Elicen, in so far as you could trust someone who walked around with their own severed ahead attached to their belt, and she only worried about half the time that Elicen’s home contained a portal to hell, so she tried not to think too much of the exchange.

“Just careful when you get out of the bathroom,” continued Elicen, as Tuatara closed the door behind her. “These doors aren’t the safest.”

I’m not going to think about that. I’m not going to think about that.

Tuatara repeated the words over and over in her mind, until she had finished and the concept of thinking had lost its meaning entirely. She regretted doing immediately. Celia had warned all of them that trying not to think about something was the surest way to always think about it. Pushing down the slowly raising anxiety, Tuatara wished Celia had lied.

And then Tuatara pressed the door to Elicen’s kitchen, which instead opened into the eastern plains.

Originally written 4.6.2024