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You turn on the shower slowly. The metal of the handle feels cold against your bare hand. Your fingers around it, regulating the water. You step in, calmly, under the strong jet of water. You feel it slowly turning from cold, to warm, to boiling hot. You wonder idly if your skin will burn, but it just feels good. Your muscles, knotted together tightly, slowly start relaxing. It’s nearly painful, at first. Your back isn’t used to relief. Every movement, every sharp intake of breath, every bad news, makes the muscles in your back contract. All day long. Hour after hour. Minute after minute. Second after second. Long, agonizing moments that you have learnt to live through. Your body is the one thing you treat badly. Without thinking, without caring. As the hot water is slowly warming your freezing skin, your mind begins to wander. Today, you want to take your time in the shower. The smell of your favourite shampoo fills the air as you delicately place it in your hair. Yes, today is going to be all about being delicate. No rushed movements, your back cannot handle it. No torturing your hair to make it rinse quicker. None of that. You push the water to the maximum. And then just stand there. Silently. You close your eyes. Concentrate on the feeling, just the feeling. The feeling of the water unhurriedly making its way on your body, washing away everything that’s happened, everything that you want to forget: momentarily forgotten. Only momentarily, you know that, even though you can’t even bare to think it as you gradually slip into bliss. As the water rushes down on your wet bare skin, you start feeling better. Slowly, the tears start to fade. Unnoticeably, at first, since the path that they have created down your eyes, onto your cheeks and through your lips does not seem to change with the water from the shower. But slowly, as the water runs off you, as your muscles relax, as your mind calms down, as the delicate movements become easier, you start feeling like there is no need to rush, no need to do anything but stand here. And as you finally calm down, the tears gradually stop. You can feel it coming. As the tears and despair were being washed away, a new feeling was creeping into your soul, in the deep part that you can’t even recognise, into your heart. Hope. Terrifying. Dangerous. Hope.