One year ago I moved into a new place and was excited to use the whirlpool bathtub for the first time. I’ve never had my own bathtub with jets before and was looking forward to this moment all day. This was going to soothe my aching muscles and relax my mind. The house wasn’t actually new, it was 25 years old but the previous owners seemed to have done an excellent job keeping it tidy. I had cleaned the tub to my exacting standards even though it was already fairly clean to the naked eye. Now it was sparking and inviting. “I want you in me” it beckoned.
Fake candles lit, relaxing space music on, the tub filled slowly like a burlesque dancer building anticipation. A handful of epsom salts sprinkled in for good measure as if seasoning a savory dish. I gingerly lower myself in. Bliss! The moment of truth has arrived. I smash the button for the jets. They were noisy but worked well. I closed my eyes and let the blasting water take me to Valhalla.
After a good ten minutes of relaxing in the tub, I tired of the jets and shut them off. As the water stopped churning I looked down. It took my brain microseconds to process it but time seemed to slow down as the horror unfolded before my eyes. I gagged. Has someone snuck in and had taco bell squirts in my tub? I couldn’t move. Trapped in my very own swamp of sadness. I knew that if I didn’t think happy thoughts I would sink and die. Would someone found me like this after three days, alerted by the smell that a terrible crime has been committed? I wanted to call for help but could only imagine firefighters showing up and all succumbing to the sadness too. No, I had to escape on my own. Every moment in the soupy sewage was spelling my doom. What did the previous owners do in this tub? Had they been murderers and used the tub to dissolve corpses? Were there dark satanic fecal orgies in here? Was that nice quiet old couple part of a secret cult performing arcane rites to summon Yog-Sothoth to bring about the end times and make this a suitable entrance point for malign entities and the nameless devourers? I worried that I would be impregnated with a demonic shadow beast that would only need hours to incubate before exploding forth into the world. The Lovecraftian gates to a nightmare dimension have been opened in my bathtub. A ululating wail that seemed to emanate from deep in my bowels escaped my lips. Dogs all over the neighborhood started barking and howling in a strange cacophony.
Somehow, I finally extracted myself from the bubbling bog of eternal stench. The towels I wiped myself down with had to be run-through with wooden stakes, burned to ash, then buried on consecrated ground. Since that day, I have been less interested in anything with jetted water. Lush should make a bath bomb that mimics my experience for the luxury goth-horror set. Madness Bombs™. I have never spoken of this before and I fear that there lingers in my tub a force that yearns for it’s time of chaos and sometimes I think I hear whispers in a strange tongue that make my mind itch.
~B
The Calamities 