'Wait! Something is not right,' Julie thought as she clicked the 'send'-button on her email. She closely observed the monitor to look for anything out of the ordinary, but there was nothing. There were a few unread mails, but nothing that demanded her immediate attention. She took a long, deep breath. Looking around her desk she saw her cup of tea, her water bottle, her camera. Again, nothing unusual. Perhaps it was just her unconscious telling her to stop working. She had sat at her desk for who knows how long.
'Maybe, I should just take a break,' she said to herself. She got up from her chair, took a big stretch and went to the kitchen. Making herself some lunch, she could not shake that pressing feeling of unease. Something was wrong, she thought, but she just could not see what it was. Maybe all that constant work had finally fried her brain. She sat down to eat and thought about what could set her mind at ease. A bath, she decided. A bath to pay some well-deserved attention to her body. That was exactly what she needed right now.
As she drew her bath, her hands instinctively moved to remove her clothes, only to find none to be there. Julie snickered at that small cognitive hiccup. Only recently had she started to try living nude, and she was still getting used to it. Of course, when she went outdoors she still made sure to dress adequately. But, as long as she was indoors, the benefits far outweighed the costs. She tried to remember where she first came across the idea. She remembered having heard about it from someone, but she could not quite place it right now. It felt like trying to remember the name of a song or of a book that she used to know by heart, but had somehow forgotten.
'It'll come back to me,' she said to herself as she got into the bathtub. The warm water felt so pleasant on her skin. She laid back and, admiring the smooth waves of steam ascending from the water, she tried to finally calm her nerves. This time, it worked. She felt as if she had done exactly what she was supposed to do, and it felt good to reap the rewards. Bit by bit, she felt her muscles relax and a deep sense of calm washed over her. After some time, when she judged she had had enough bathing time, she got out and moved to the living room. Without much thought, she made a small detour to the office, unplugging her camera from her laptop and taking it with her.
