He pulls up his pants making sure not to touch anything, with his hand that finished the job, that would be touched later. He opens up the stall door. The smell of urinal mints overrides ironically the urine and feces. Neither smell is tolerable. He pumps the soap onto his hand. The smell of soap now overrides him. This soap is cheap. Cheap but strong. It cleans, however, and one needs to stay clean. He turns the knob on the sink and washes the foam off his hands. He grabs a paper towel to dry. He turns to the door and stares at the handle. A small voice tells him "hold on now" and steals his vision into a different time. The land is full of large hairy biker men wiping their horrible asses then touching the door handle without washing their hands. Flashes of children with their narrowest finger protruding their nostrils and then touching the door handle. A man coughs and tuberculosis caused blood spatters on his hand. The man casually wipes his hand on his pants and touches the door handle. The voice then says "watch...", as he can see himself touch the door handle then fast forward into a future time when he puts food in his mouth with his tainted hand. The voice shows the collection of unhealthy dirty matter on the door. All compiled realistically enough to make one of normal mentality gag. He now is put back in front of the door. He turns around thinking about grabbing a paper towel to open the door with. The voice whispers something about people only washing their hands with water and then turning the little crank to dispense paper towels. Then he is again hit with the image of eating with shit on his hands. He stares at the crank. He then turns it with his left pinky, deciding that he would be careful not to touch that to anything that was going to enter his system. The paper towel came out in a small victory. It was stored in a little box, so nothing could have touched it, he thought. The voice then nagginly stole his vision to a factory. There are long lines of sweaty men and women on a conveyer belt, each doing their part. The man at the end has a cold. He sneezes on his hands then packages the towels. He also shook hands with a man who doesn't wash up because he believes soap causes cancer. The paper towel is then put in a truck where rat poison was previously transferred and is shipped off. It then ends up right in front of him. He gets aggravated with himself that he lets this voice bring him to these places, but to do an opposing task is to suggest something that is impossible. It is unthinkable. He is, however, not without will power, that is to say ability to argue back. He could not argue before because the voice had stronger, if not unarguable, points. Plus I'm sure the paper towel has been unwound enough so the outside layer (that is covered in poison, mucus, and fecal dregs) is gone. The voice was silent then. Argument won. He tore the paper towel carelessly and used it as one side of a glove. He felt the cold door handle through the paper as he latched on. He quickly opened the door and casually held it open with his shoe and threw away the paper towel. He left in victory.
He had just woken up from his daily nap and his door to leave. He closes the door behind him. He is about to head downstairs to eat dinner when he notices some of the doors are open. Instead of thinking so?, he decides they must be closed. The reason that they must be is because or else he can't go downstairs. There is a wall there. A wall that puts pressure on his chest and heart when he runs into it. He tries to fight it and takes another step downward. The pressure on his chest spreads into his stomach and each grows stronger. He stops. The nagging he feels now is as if he is leaving an annoying child unattended out of aggravation. It is an abstract illogical guilt. Some guilt is illogical as is, but this is abstract because it is not of this world. In this world is doesn't matter if doors are open, they don't affect the house, and they should not physically and mentally affect a person. These thoughts don't stop the pressure though. He turns around and lets out a deep sigh of disgust in himself. He sprints back upstairs and closes all of the doors. The ones that are closed he makes sure they are completely as hinted. As he heads down the stairs he has mixed feelings of completion and failure. Why is it a hassle for him if the doors are closed? It doesn't have anything to do with cleanliness or hygiene. The voice is just pissing him off. Every now and then the voice needs to hurt him a little for no reason, just to let him know the controller and the controllee. It is times like these that make him wonder if its intentions are beneficial. Or if its just there for control purposes, feigning a mutual imput. He is now eating dinner at home contemplating all of this. He does not touch his hands on the table unintentionally. The voice is scared of all of this overanalyzation and retreated to the subconscious. He decides right then to lessen the unnecessary control it holds.
He sits at dinner in the city. A waitress comes over and distributes the menus to him and his friends. As he stares blankly into the menu the voice pulls him back to dozens of moments when he is watching the news. Each news cast is about a small dinner or restaurant serving food with toxins or bacteria present. There is always someone working undercover videotaping the completely unsanitary kitchen that would make a poor excuse for a bathroom. Chefs are shown doing things to food that would be grounds for capital punishment. The voice waves its persuasive finger in the "no, no" fashion. He is sucked back into his body staring at the menu. He notes to himself the specific foods that reoccurred with taint. He laughs, feeling he has tricked the voice. He orders whatever is not on the list. The voice smiles softly to itself because it knows some of the denied food is appealing to him. What is accomplished is unclear for both. He slowly takes a bite out of his samwich, smiling at his being both cunning and content with his present situation. The voice dislikes this self respect and thinks to itself that he could be enjoying his meal more. But can he ask more than being content?
The relationship of the voice and the boy is confusing. The voice began just trying to help him, keep him away from illness and the like. The boy appreciated it for being his own little hygiene conscience. It is anybody's guess that it just became greedy. Probably found it can express its hold in many separate, non-related, irrelevant, illogical, unclear, and demanding ways. Think of the possibilities. Ownership over something that created it. This is when it became evil, when it became a disease. Something that originally was there to keep him healthy is now resulting in the opposite. He knows this, but it doesn't. This poor apprentice relationship does not have all greedy control moments, though. The fact that it is making him unhealthy is reason enough to try to wade him away from that. Self-destructive in a way. So slowly this disease fades away. He still keeps the positive aspects, however, like cleanliness, but not to the point of developing and ulcer. So the voice is gone in him, but beware, for it still lurks among a society based rightly off of cleanliness and nervously unnatural scents. It will prey on your children, and even you. By now you understand too much of the obsessive compulsive mind to turn back and ignore every outcome and income of events. You have been warned and tainted.
