Teen Time

Shark Dimension

Shark Dimension

It was six o’clock in the morning when the water suddenly stopped streaming from the showerhead. My hair was lathered with shampoo. I had soap bubbles in my mouth, and my eyes were stinging because I'd opened them to look at the faucet.

Of course, I couldn't see anything, and as my thinking sharpened up, I grabbed a towel, wrapped it around me, and started to step out of the tub.

That's when I discovered that my foot couldn't find a floor. I opened soap tearing eyes and looked down. All was black. No fuzzy, cute penguin mat. Black, black, black, except for the pink and florescent green lines running across the non-floor. It looked like someone had chalked up a sidewalk in straight lines going in tangents and bisects, spreading out in all directions. I peered down at the side of the tub. It was the darkness of space. I was floating in outer space.

“Ahhhhhhh!” I scream, and pulled back my foot. It’s a good thing, because at that moment, I saw a huge gray shark swimming by, eating all the pink lines. I watched his mouth open and close. He crunched loudly, smacking his lips. Then he veered and traveled up a lime green tangent.

“What in the world?” I cried out, but “in the world” was obviously where I wasn’t.

There was also no one around, unless one counted the shark rapidly swimming away from me. (I was quite glad he was, to tell you the truth. Wherever I was, whatever dimension, sharks looked too much like they did in my zone of residence to be something I’d like to call back and question.)

“Help! Help!” I whimpered feebly. (Having soap in one’s eyes does turn you into baby, you know.)

Unfortunately no one answered, which was just as well, I suppose, since my clothes hadn’t transported with me.

I sat down in the tub and thought about the situation. Where was I? Why was I there? How did I get there, and more importantly, how did I get back home?

A bubble slid down my right cheek. I lifted it off and watched it float away in the air. Its globular surface glittered with orange reflections. For a moment I thought I saw my mirror and my own bathroom toilet with its adorable penguin seat cover. Then I saw my pink toothbrush!

I scrambled up, trying to catch the bubble, but it drifted off into the void. I didn’t dare follow it. I wasn’t sure where the shark had gone.

I sat there in that cooling water and tried to figure out how it was possible I’d seen my bathroom in that bubble. Only one explanation. I wet my hands, and then rubbed them in the soapy lather of my hair. I made a small bubble, not nearly as large as the one I’d looked into before, but inside it I saw my hairbrush and comb. My lipstick was lying on the sink. “Yes,” I cried out. That’s the way back. All I have to do is crawl inside!”

I chortled and looked about, studying the geometrical world I’d found myself in. Off to the left were some angles dancing a square dance. Up above the shower curtain, a rectangle danced by, wobbling in and of its shape. Sometimes it was a trapezoid; other times, a parallelogram. “Oh,” I gasped, as an unexpected hexagon almost bopped my nose.

“That’s it. Time to go,” decided as if that had ever been in doubt.

I lathered up my hands, added water, and lathered again. The slight breeze of the geometric dance team had quieted down, and the bubble refused to come out of my hands.

“Listen, you,” I said. “Do you want me to clap my hands together, and smear you out?”

The bubble’s eyes drooped. It shimmered a tear.

“Oh, I wouldn’t really do that,” I reassured the bubble, “but please won’t you help me to get home? My bathwater’s cold.”

The sphere grew a pyramid-like nose. Almost immediately, it sneezed. “Sorry,” it said, “I have soap scum in my nose.”

I toweled an eye. “Yes, I know what you mean,” I told it. “I want to go home. We don’t belong in a two dimensional world.”

The pyramid nose grew eyes attached to two cone-shaped projections. “I see,” it said. “Lines and angles everywhere. How shallow. “

“Yes, except for one shark that seems perfectly three-dimensional,” I told the bubble.

“A shark?” it cried out, adding a blue crescent mouth pursed open with horror. “Let’s go! Hurry.”

The bubble was looking at me like I had a way home. I gulped, tasted the soap still swimming around in my mouth and spat.

“I think I have to crawl inside you,” I told the bubble.

“Oh, “ he said, looking rather doubtful. Will that hurt?”

“I don’t know. Let me put a finger in, and we’ll see,” I suggested, feeling silly talking to an orange-streaked bubble.

My finger slid in so easily, half my hand was inside before I knew it, and then, because the bubble only giggled, I just kept going. My arm, my shoulder, my head, and then my lower torso were all inside. Everything fit except one foot.

“I’m stuck,” I cried. “Can’t you grow just a little bigger? Please?”

The bubble shook its head, tossing me about. “I’m full,” it said “Any more, and I’ll pop.

“Oh, dear. What should I do? I can’t return like this. I can’t go off without my foot.”

Just that moment the shark came by, slurping up the green sides of a rectangle. “Hey,” he greeted us. “Having problems? Just inhale,” he said as he snorkeled by munching and crunching.

“Ahhhh,” I breathed in, and the bubble flew down the bright orange lines and down into the skinny angle of an isosceles triangle.”

In a moment we were back home, and the shower was still sending its steady cascade of hot water. I rinsed out my hair and stepped out into the morning.