"Are you happy?"

     I was seated on the floor with my back up against the wall outside of the opened bathroom door.



     I occupied myself with a matchbox that I rolled back and forth onto its corners and chain smoked cigarettes as a distraction while I tried to carry on a conversation with Nin. It was difficult not to imagine what she was doing through the opened door and other side of the wall.
     Every so often, I'd hear the splashing of water as she adjusted some part of her body.
     I knew that she was obscured, she had to be, I had poured half a bottle of shampoo into the tub when I ran the bath but when my mind wandered I couldn't stop myself from thinking about what was being obscured--
     I drank whisky from a teamug and fidgeted something awful... trying to shake thoughts like sickness.
     "I thought that we were here because I'm unhappy," She answered. There was more splashing and I pictured her drinking whisky from the mug I'd set out for her, or maybe smoking a cigarette of her own. I'd doubted that she would but set some out for her in good measure.
     "In the bath?" She questioned.
     "In the bath."
     "Sylvia Plath once wrote something about there being few things a hot bath couldn't cure--"
     "And absolutely nothing a gas oven wouldn't take care of, apparently." I mumbled.
     "What was that?"
     "Happiness!" I exclaimed.
     "I don't know happiness-- I haven't figured it out."
     "That's nonsense. There has to be something that makes you happy."
     "There isn't. I used to think that records made me happy but none of it seems to matter anymore-- nothing matters anymore."
     "But what is your happiness? What is the one thing in the world that you do that no one else can do for you?"
     "Like a talent?"
     "I wouldn't go so far," I joked. I felt myself make a light  expression and hoped she could hear the tone of it in my voice.
     "I haven't got one."
     "Everyone's got one."
     "I haven't."

     I took whisky in and stared across the room. My eyes fell on the records. A thought shot energy through me and jolted me to my feet.
     I rushed into the bath without aforethought.
     "HEY!" Nin yelled with a yelp. She tried to cover certain parts of herself with her arms and hands.
     "Jesus," I turned my back to her and raised my sight to the ceiling, "Get out of the bath."
     "What?"
     "Get out of the bath," I waved my hands about excitedly as I shifted my weight from one foot to the other.
     "Why?"
     "I want to show you something."
     Nin sighed and the water sounded heavy like someone vacating it.
     "I guess you've already seen everything that I have-- why not?"