Toothpaste

Hi,

This is a short story I wrote quite sometime back.

Toothpaste

by Kaber Vasuki

The sunlight trespasses through the window and tears my eyelids open. I sit up and feel the redness of my eyes, weighing my eyelids down. I look around to see colours whizzing in front of me. I shake my head and rub my eyes.

My mouth splits open to let out a yawn. I realize that I am not asleep. My mind is in crossover, in between awake and asleep. I am swimming in the river between the two banks of consciousness.

I get out of bed; the coldness of the floor irritates me. I slowly throw away all the clothes that I am wearing. I pull a towel out of the floating clothes line and tighten it around my waist.

The bathroom door’s creaking annoys me.

I squeeze out a blob of tooth paste. The bristles bend under its pressure. My grip on the brush is slight and it turns over. The toothpaste falls somewhere.

The fools who make tooth paste must make it more adhesive. I should get a tooth brush with a better grip.

I search around, I don’t find any trace of the fallen blob. I scan the sink completely, I look all around the floor, but it isn’t there. I mumble a few swear words and squeeze out some more.

I brush; I turn the water tap open and place a bucket under it.

I bend down and wash my face with some water, in an attempt to become fully conscious.

I notice something white on my ankle; I touch it. It is the lost splotch of toothpaste.

I wash my face again and some idea comes to life in my head.

I blamed the people who made the toothpaste; I blamed the grip-less brush handle, I tried to blame the sink for hiding my tooth paste, the floor too. They bore my inspection.

The only person I did not blame is myself.

Cheers

Kaber