an excerpt from a book i just read. not my favorite book in the world, but this little bit stuck with me. such is life.....
"Daniel would sink down on his knees in the warm waters, tipping his head back until love filled his ears and buoyed up his wings. He would close his eyes and slip down beneath the still waters, hoping that no one would notice if he remained there forever, submerged in the blind, warm depths. But the already-weres who ran the place weren't supposed to allow them to say there long. It wasn't healthy, the signs on the walls read. Those at risk of heart disease, or those who had a family history of borken hearts, were especially warned not to linger. But most did anyway, wrenching themselves out only when they absolutely had to, shivering off to school with their wings shriveled and shrunken.
Daniel had barely just arrived one night, sinking himself into the sweet warm pool, when the bath attendant assigned to watch him, a bald, thin man named Boris, sneaked up behind him and hauled him out by his wings.
"What are you doing?" Daniel sputtered as Boris raised him into the frigid air. Daniel had only discovered the bath a few weeks before, and he was livid.
"You can't just sit in that pool all night. You need to get used to the other temperatures," the bald man told him, his voice gruff. "You don't want to be surprised after you're born. If you never feel it here, there's no way you'll survive it there."
"But what about everybody else?" Daniel protested, waving his arm at the other not-yets splashing and laughing in the water. "Nobody's making them leave!" Drops of warm water still lingered in his ears.
Boris looked around at the other bath attendants, most of whom were lounging on the sides of the pool of love, dawdling, dangling their toes in with their charges. "That's because their attendants are idiots," he whispered. "Come with me, and I'll show you how to really take a bath." Then he took Daniel under his wing and whisked him off to a deserted room on the far end of the bathouse. Before Daniel knew what was happening, Boris had plunged him, feet first, into a tub of ice-filled hate.
Daniel screamed. Boris refused to let him out, holding his shoulders down under the ice. The pain was terrifying. Daniel screamed himself hoarse, but Boris just watched him scream his face immobile at the edge of the bath. Slowly Daniels's limbs began to go numb, and with the numbness, his screams subsided. He could no longer move, but he could also no longer feel. He sank deeper into the ice, frozen and silent.
"That's enough," Boris said, and wrenched him out of the water. Sill numb, Dnaiel rode on Boris's shoulders like a block of ice, more silent and cold than the storehouses of snow, until Boris opened another door, this time to a small, deep tank. He closed the door and gently lowered Daniel in a cold still pool of grief.
Daniel remained frozen, but he was no longer numb. This time he could feel the cold water seeping into his nose and ears and mouth, chilling his limbs. He tried to float, but he sank like a water logged book to the bottom, submerged in the cold. The ice had scalded him until he couldn't feel, but here there was no shield against the deep chill that seeped into him, tugging on his spine. He struggled in the water, but the more he moved, the more the cold soaked his bones. Boris watched him writhing beneath the surface and held his breath. At last he could no longer stand to watch, and pulled Daniel out. "A lot of people like to jump into the hot tub as soon as possible after the cold, but it's not a good idea," he advised Daniel. Daniel barely heard him. His blue face was streaked with tears. "Let's get you to one of the steam rooms instead."
Daniel wept on Boris's shoulder as Boris carried him into another room, this one thick with a gently heated mist. How wonderful it was! Slowly, movement returned, and he breathed in deeply, inhaling the refreshing moisture until his body tingled with life. He tipped his head back and felt the cozy mist tickle the insides of his ears until he started laughing. He was still laughing when Boris lifted him up again and carried him to another room, this one with a narrow pool divided in half, partitioned between desire and lust.
When he slipped into the half nearset to the door, Daniel found the water so hot that he almost climbed out, afraid of being scalded. But the more parts of his body he slipped into it, the less he wanted to leave. Bit by bit, his body took the drug and lulled itself into the burning pool . He enjoyed the tug of the heavy heat, allowing it to pull his head below the surface, allowing his eyes and mouth to ease open - and then, underwater, he screamed. SALT! He felt the salt blind him, searing his eyes and gagging his tounge. If I keep my eyes and mouth closed, it will be fine, he thought. He squinted his eyes and pursed his lips, but the damage had been done. His head burned, reeled. This time he climed out and jumped into the next pool without Boris's help - a churning hot tub where he rinsed his eyes and mouth, swallowing the tumbling whirlpool of boiling water until his head went weak in the heat. It was only after that, when Daniel had stayed in the hot tub so long that he nearly burst his own tiny heart, that Boris took him out and brought him back to the main room, where he gently floated him on his back into the pool of love.
"Much better, isn't it?" Boris asked.
But Daniel could no longer speak. The water that had simply been warm before now overwhelmed him with ectasy, caressing him from every side, buoying him to the surface, embracing him around the neck. When Boris lifted him out, much later, he didn't even protest. This time the warmth had entered him forever, saturating his bones and his heart.
- The World To Come, Dara Horn
I did not anticipate the extra joy this purchase would bring two other little beings in my life. They have a new favorite toy. 
