The man and his soap

There once lived a man. He cared about keeping his hands clean. Everywhere he went, he would take a wooden box with a bar of soap. It was a special wooden box - it was carved with beautiful designs and initials on top “B.T”, from the time his grandmother presented this box to his grandfather on their anniversary.

The man thought a lot about what his grandpa kept in the box. Maybe he kept letters from his wife, or tobacco, or cutouts from old newspapers about important events. Whatever it was, now the box contained a bar of soap, carefully packed in a ziplock bag, a pink aromatic oval object used daily by the man.

The man had to travel a lot. Some restrooms didn’t have soap, some had soap, but it was so yucky that the man would never touch it. That’s why everywhere he went, the man would have his wooden box with him with the pink bar of soap inside the ziplock bag.

This time the man was on a very long trip. The transition to his destination took over a day. The man was exhausted, and his hands were dirty. Finally he was able to locate a restroom in a shady restaurant on a shady street. The man closed the door behind him, took out his wooden box and opened it.

Something seemed really wrong with the pink bar of soap inside the ziplock bag. It moved. It moved rather desperately. It clearly tried to get out. It even cried for help - the man heard the high-pitched crying inside the bag.

The first thought after jumping away from the box was: Throw the ziplock into the toilet! It’s disgusting! But then his curiosity won. The man carefully approached the box, picked up the ziplock bag by the edge with two fingers and carefully pulled it out of the box, looking at the pink weirdness with horror and disgust.

To his greatest surprise it did seem like his bar of soap after all! Just a bar of soap that suddenly came to life and really wanted to get out. The man unzipped the bag and let the bar out into the sink.

“Oh, thank you, Sir! Goodness Gracious!” the man heard distinct high-pitched words coming out of the soap bar “I thought I'd never get out of here!”

“What is this?!” The man asked, bewildered.

“Oh, just a regular bar of soap, don’t you worry, sir! I assume you wanted to wash your hands with me? Please go ahead, sir!”
“Uh…” the man didn’t know what to say and kept standing in front of the sink staring at the pink lively bar of soap sliding swiftly around the bowl.

“For Christ's sake, just turn on the water and put me in your hands!” the bar shrieked with annoyance.

The man shrugged and carefully turned the water on.

“Oh, that’s heavenly!” the bar happily jumped under the stream, clearly enjoying the experience. “A little warmer, would you mind, sir?”

The man made the water warmer.

“Oh, that’s just heavenly!” The soap bar was jumping under the stream like a happy fish “Just heavenly!”

A few minutes went by. The soap bar was sliding down the sink as if it was a water slide, then scrambling to get back up to do it again. It screamed and laughed and shrieked with excitement.

The man stood there, looking at it, and a big happy smile gradually appeared on his face. Suddenly the restroom door opened. A fat short man appeared in the doorway.
“Oh sorry!” the short man saw that the bathroom was occupied and disappeared behind the door.

“Oh, my golly! That was close!” the soap whispered, pressing itself along a sink wall, trying not to move, but constantly sliding towards the middle of the sink. “We really should get going, don’t you think so, sir?”

“Yes, we should” - the man said with relief. He took a napkin and gently picked up the soap. Then he carefully wiped it with the napkin and slid into the ziplock bag.

“Cheers!” the soap shrieked “See you in a bit!”

“Cheers!” the man put the soap in the wooden box, closed the lid and exited the restroom...

The man was walking on a deserted street of a deserted town with a big smile on his face. In his hands there was the wooden box.

Is this for real? The man stopped, opened his box slightly and smirked. There it was, his new friend, moving inside the ziplock bag, making squeaky noises, lively and alive!