During the years I spent back at my parents' home, after being away for university, still completely dependent on them, and having endless angry arguments with them about how to approach the rest of my life, what to do with my failed studies and how to start making money, I went whole months without a proper bath or shower.
I often felt I had no business being still there, and also felt unable to survive in the outside world, so there seemed to be no place for me anywhere. Not knowing what to do, I defaulted to trying to go unnoticed (my father has always complained a lot about how much I got in his way in his own house) and reducing my existence to the bare minimum short of committing suicide, which I think only cowardice stopped me from. Hygiene was one of the many everyday issues which remained unsolved as far as making agreements with my parents was concerned for the time I'd spend there. They never truly accepted modern habits like the daily shower, being more inclined to criticize me for wanting to adopt them, and, years earlier, they'd gotten angry with me for spending too much water. Actually, I was depressed and spent a lot of time in the bathroom when I was going to have a cold (no hot water) shower, and they counted it as if I'd had the water running all the time, which was far from true, but they didn't care. Every time my relationship with them wasn't recently mended by some sort of make-up conversation, memories like these led me to avoid having showers when they were around, in case they'd get angry again. Once or twice a month, I'd sneak into the bathroom at night or when they happened to be away and wash only some part of my body or other as well as I could.
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The red lake has been forgotten. A dust devil stuns you long enough to shroud forever those last shards of wisdom. The breeze rocking this forlorn wasteland whispers in your ears, “Não resta mais que uma sombra”.