Bath

Deciding exactly what he deserves, like any decision, is best contemplated in the bath. Even now, with more answers than questions, a trip to the bath is an adventure. I'm not speaking of the common bathroom, not even the prefect's bathroom. I present to you the Teacher's Bath. Not bath "room", for this would be called a "bath hall" if describing size.
Walking into this bath hall is like a trumpet fan fare and cymbals and fireworks. And it really is. A seventy-six piece symphonic band, with orchestral accompaniment, compliments the far wall. The conductor will usually delight in Souza, before sitting at the piano and playing Gershwin, or on my formal and most private request, A selection by Count Basie.
Why I know about Souza and Basie is quite obvious. I've been to the Muggle World. And a few times. Though I doubt even Dumbledore knows about it.
Why the conductor knows of these artists is beyond me, espcially taking into consideration that him, and his seventy-six piece symphonic band, with orchestral accompaniment, are all ghosts. Thier vast knowledge of music, and thier death, are unimportant.

That splendor, the bloody velvet dripping from omonously tall windows. Tall, and hardly wide. All the windows on the farthest wall, though the glass was blurred, had the sunshine scream in through them and onto the beautifully crafted tapestry that hung lazily on walls and on floor. The same velvet curtain material draped itself on arm chairs - the comfortable ones that you could snuggle with and fall asleep in. Tables, or mirrors with legs attached, lay neatly beside the disheveled chair so that in thier existence together they neutralized eachother's qualities.
Perhaps it was the definite, almost inhuman way that souza and his almost symmetrical marches sounded through the hall, but it seemed that everything in the room, the lounge, had more purpose to itself than to be placed and stay forever. These items moved. Just as if the sun only came and went because of it's own intention and not because of Earth's orbit, these objects would form various intricate patterns in the middle of the room, stay for a day or two, and change. Such was the splendor or the lounge. To the right, though sometimes to the left, stood a door which led to the baths.

The soap is compassionate. They line in a row, different colors, shapes, so many that I have not yet tried all of them. some rough to the touch, most softer than the stomach of a puppy. Not one had the normal, taken-for-granted affect of soap, though they all understood that muscle grows tense and skin dry after long hours. They allow charms, but manual wash benefits them more and so they will work harder to become a heavenly lather.
Easily, my favorite is Jessica. A small, skinny triangular prism-shaped bar with seductive attributes. She is smooth and gentle, but as powerful as any of the rougher bars when the mood takes her. Her color changes from milk white to a dark violent depending on the month. She once told me she liked my hair and I told her she was my favorite.
Miles is a blue-collared, working class-type soap. Rough, grainy, brown, squared and sharp, although I've seen him become cubed at certain times in the year, he likes doing the ditry work. While Jessica would run herself along my chest, the muscles in my neck, my shoulders, Miles would go straight to my feet. He had earth qualities in him, grounded, didn't talk much.
There are others. More timid, afraid I may bite. Clear, vicious sphere-shaped ones so hungering for my nails to dig into thier backs. They hold grudges, they have clans and guilds and cults. Poor, old Professor Bromine fell in love with Ali, a complex bar, maybe even personality disorder wrapped up in those intricate layers. Bromine tried to take her back with him, and... well, perhaps the soap is not always compassionate... but the soap is always something.

The bath water was in the same way of moods. I befriended a few tubs in the eastern-most corner of the room, and usually they will let me sit in them. There are no windows in the room, always using a spell to light candles, sometimes the birds that live in the forest get angry with this. They swoop from the forest that is over-grown in the north-eastern part of the bath and will not stop pecking until it is totally dark. I agree with them, darkness rests the eyes, takes one whole sense out of the picture, leaves room for thinking.
There's a suana in the corner next to the forest. I've never been in there before, it's too foreboding for my tastes. and to is not an item to speak of when the sun is away.

That is where I am when I am thinking, when I am writing. In the lounge listening to Chopin, in the bath listening to the sizzle of tubs, chirping birds.. and always my pulse. My pulse, the internal clock. Sometimes, alone in my bed, already kicked the sheets off me, and sweating.. i will put my index and pointer finger to the side of my neck, and little to the right of my adam's apple, and leave it there. It reminds me that I am alive.
that I am alive for him.

Again, another bath time realization.