Restroom Obsession
I had a friend named Tunc. He was not really a friend, we worked together for a short while. He was very tall and skinny, long thin nose, pale skin and dark hair. His two front teeth were slightly overlapping, lisping a bit as he spoke. He had a slim pair of glasses sitting on the middle of his nose which he had to rearrange every now and then. He was weird. Very weird, actually. One of the weirdest people I’ve ever met. I didn’t get to know him that well, to be honest. He was out of his job in about two months.
We used to work in the same atelier, back when I still had a job. We were working under a lot of pressure, and so we were anxious most of the time. Angry, busy, tired of working an unpleasant job. I don’t know, I couldn’t know him under that circumstance even if I wanted to. Well, honestly, I didn’t want to know him at first. Communicating with him wasn’t the easiest thing, and I was stressed out. I simply didn’t bother. But, something was sweet about him. How’s it like to be close friends with him?! I wondered from time to time. Everyone has a close friend. Who’s he friends with?!
One time, we crossed paths in the restroom upstairs. I stood by the sink to wash my hands. He was soaping his hands very slowly, as though he had all the time in the world. It got me mad a little bit. How can he, I wondered to myself, with this big pile of work in our atelier waiting, how can he be so slow?! The cold water poured all over my hands, I rubbed my foamy hands together. I was thinking about something, I was very distracted. He said something. He got my attention by a subtle hand movement in the mirror in front of us. Pardon?! I asked him to repeat what he just said.
“Your shirt…” he pointed at my shirt.
“What about it?!” I asked.
“It’s touching the sink.” He said and pointed to my shirt touching the sink in front of me. I looked at him. I stared at myself for a second in the mirror. And then I looked back at him. He was standing away from the sink, just very careful not to touch it. My shirt was all over the edge of the sink. He explained why and how it was wrong and disgusting. I was wondering why it was a problem, I don’t think I heard him.
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