Caroline never gets up right away. She counts backwards from when she means to wake up, and how many slams of the snooze button it will take. 6:35 (6-5-4-3-2-1). 6:40 (5-4-3-2-1). 6:45 (4-3-2-1). 6:45 (3-2-1). 6:50 (2-1). 6:55 (1). 7:00. Time. It’s six steps to the closet. Eight steps to the bathroom from there. 14 steps together. Fourteen, thirteen, twelve, eleven, ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. Fourteen minutes in the shower. Rub the washcloth across soap fourteen times to work up lather, each hand moves fourteen times across her scalp, fourteen seconds to rinse her face. She steps out, retracing her steps back to the closet. Did she take six steps? Eight steps? or was it seven? Never seven and seven- she crawls back into the bed and then gets up, carefully counting each step this time, clenching her hands together for each step. (One, two, three, four, five, six.) To the bathroom. (One two three four fivesixseveneight.) Fourteen. Did she shower? Her hair is wet- yes. How many times did she hit the snooze button? Was it really fourteen exact steps? Did that shufflestep count?
This is from a book of writing exercises that I carried around for a while. I'm very good at visualizing OCD, for obvious reasons.