The alarm buzzed and she stretched out her hand to quickly quieten it before it woke the whole house. The red numbers glared at her as she opened her eyes. 4:30 was such an ungodly hour to be waking up.
She gently shuffled herself outside her bed, trying not to waken the mountain range that still lay covered by her duvet. Luckily, he didn’t move and the slight rumble of his snore confirmed she hadn’t woken him. She slipped out of the room and padded softly to the bathroom.
Once inside, with the door closed, she switched on the light. She stood in front of the mirror and took a look at her reflection. She had her toothbrush in her hand and was about to automatically go through the routine operation of brushing her teeth when a flicker of light shot through the mirror.
Susan froze. Her arm was raised to her mouth holding her toothbrush. There was a slight ripple in the atmosphere and as Susan stood motionless, the room around her changed. She was still inside a bathroom but it wasn’t the one she remembered being in when she got up early this morning.
She looked at the toothbrush in her hand. It was hers. She turned around and looked at the bathroom she was now standing in. It had dark blue tiles on the walls and the floor was covered in cream floor tiles. There was huge shower head sticking out of the wall on the far side and she was standing by a double basin with a large mirror covering most of the wall. Where was she?
She had absolutely no recollection of how she had arrived in this room. She remembered waking up in the morning and quietly making her way to her own bathroom, but then...nothing. There was then a tapping at the door.
“Sue, are you going to be much longer in there?” It was a man’s voice but not one she recognised. What was going on?
“Umm, I’ll be out in a minute.” She responded. She looked at her reflection. The woman who stared back at her was herself but different. Her face looked somehow thinner, and her hair was short and bleached. Where had her long honey blonde hair gone? Another flicker inside the mirror and Susan was back.
She stumbled from the basin and found herself sitting on the rim of her bath. It was her bath. She was back in her bathroom. The toothbrush had dropped to the floor as she stumbled back and she raised her hand to her head. She felt strange; somehow disconnected.
There was a tapping at the door. “Hey, Susan, you gonna be long? I really need to go for a piss.” It was Danny’s voice.
“You can come in.” She croaked.
The door opened into the bathroom with dark blue tiles and on the cream floor lay a young woman with short bleached hair.
This short story was written for this week’s Drop In the Ocean show. Drop in the Ocean is a weekly show over on Discord in the BuddyUp server.
You can join us anytime by clicking here. When you first arrive you will be welcomed and directed to introduce yourself. After all, we want to know who our new buddy is.
The Drop in the Ocean airs every Monday at 8pm (UTC) and together all the buddies discuss their individual posts on the word of the week.
This week's word is:
Disconnect
If you are new to Steem and are still trying to find your feet, then there's a great community over on Discord that are there to help. All you need do is click the banner below, the one for Steem Terminal. Just hover your mouse and you'll see it change.
Steem Terminal is just one of many great communities. It has been set up to help. You can read more about it here and here.
