I sit up from a bleached bed, bowed. I might try a jig or a stretch, not for relief, but just to know my body is something more than pain. Somewhere inside my gut my tissue is inflamed, I worry too there may be some wayward blood, but I don’t have time for those thoughts. I am having a bath! Beetlelike I make my way across the room. My feet are bare, sinuous, on the teak veneer floor.

My P.E. teacher once said my feet reminded him of a horse, It was not meant as a complement but I took it as one. My feet are strong; though a donkey – a beast of burden – is a more accurate association.

Once at the bath, I sit on the side, next to the taps, and let it run. That sound is the beginning of the ritual. I cover the window, the daylight is too immediate, a candle will do better.

In a church, a candle can be lit in memory of someone. I light mine here to forget.

When the water is run, no sooner, I de-robe. The clothes are piled on the floor. No folding, it’s needless here. Then tentatively a foot is placed at the vanguard, first to feel. Impatient to scorch the rest of my body and yet drawing out all the sensation I can, I lower the rest of myself slowly and definitely down.

I am a fighter pilot, soberly lowering myself – stark naked – into the cockpit and soon I’ll be in flight.

I grab my phone from beside the bath, play a song that will sooth me, and sit back, eyes closed and skin tingling. Then, for sometime, no more than 5 minutes but no less than 1, I will feel my body is fine.

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Now if that is the prelude to the bath, the following little video I’ve made is the bath itself; along with the song – Water Copy by Hiroshi Yoshimura – I mention.