Okay, here it is again. My daily ordeal for the last month or so.
I’m petrified, paralyzed.
Like everyday, I’m standing at the door of the torture chamber, my instincts screaming at me to run away.
“YOU MORON! WHY ARE YOU ENTERING THIS ROOM WILLINGLY?! ARE YOU CRAZY, YOU STUPID SHIT? DO NOT GO AHEAD WITH THIS! FIGHT IT OUT!”
I silence my self-preservation instincts. I have to do this. I take a deep breath and try to calm myself. I enter the cursed room, my breathing going crazy. Right now, my mind has to rule over my heart. I push myself to take every step as I rediscover just how strong our primal defense instincts are.
Doesn’t matter.
Right now, I have only one goal.
Entering the room, I lock the door behind me, surveying this godforsaken room again. I could see weird instruments of self destruction everywhere. Strangely shaped, with strange purposes. Nearby, a machine hummed contently. It was a strange contraption, with piped and tubes coming out of it leading to who-knows-where. I didn’t know what it did exactly, I didn’t want to know. It had a red light on. To me, it indicated imminent danger. I was staring into the eye of the devil.
Well, let’s get moving!
I tear my eyes away from the machine to a fuming, smoking mixture I had prepared for myself just a few minutes earlier. The mixture of death, I like to call it. Prepared with utmost concentration, dedication and devotion. Each drop measured, each drop accounted for. Every day, for 10 minutes, I’m a lab scientist at work, preparing this concoction. This is the heart of the procedure and I just can’t afford to go wrong with this. It’s not a game.
It’s life or death.
I fail to silent my shivering breath. I move my jaws apart so as to stop my teeth from chattering. No way out, I tell myself. Only way is to go through with this. As per procedure, I disrobe completely, feeling my skin breaking out in gooseflesh. I am now a helpless, naked, shaking mess standing on the cold, unforgiving floor in a room designed to torture me.
*Great. No problem at all.
I wonder if it’s worth it, this sacrifice. I decide it’s probably not, but who am I to silence the powers that be? Well, no point in stalling. Let’s get this over with. One way or another, it will end in a few minutes.
I take my seat, wondering if I’m going to survive this time.
I say a quick prayer.
Breathe a few times, deeply.
I take a mug and fill it to the brim with the mixture of death.
Then, with a defiant war cry, I tip the mug of water over my head.
The winter bath had begun.