You can tell I how I am by the state of my nails

Noah looks down at his haggard fingertips, examining with curious disgust the frayed bits and shallow divots vertically papering his dry and cracked cuticles.

"I'm nearing the end of this brief period of madness,"
he thinks to himself as he tries to ignore them while lathering his digits in the watery remains of the last dregs of a tired looking soap dispenser.

As the pallid and dirty gray bubbles accrue, he stops for a moment to enjoy the filmy, glove-like layer of covering mess before clean.
He likes to feel the small pockets of cool air pepper his skin as the weak bubbles burst in a sound almost like TV snow at an incredibly reduced volume.

He pushes the faucet handle with his still dry wrist so as to avoid spreading the grimy suds and thrusts his cupped palms beneath the flowing water, letting the shock of liquid cool carry away the hot, sticky layer of sweat, dirt and dead skin.
Regarding them with the delicacy of a godparent, Noah rotates his limp hands to thoroughly rinse the remaining soap from between his fingers.

He returns the sink-mounted handle to its original place and steeps himself in the momentary silence after the fierce rush of water ceases, closing his eyes to fully appreciate the half-second of meditative quiet.

His eyes open. He picks up the towel from its hook near the window.
His hands feel cold and mushy and shine with a refreshing brilliance.
He wraps them tenderly in the folds of tufted cotton, massaging the moisture out of his smooth skin.

Replacing the towel on its hook, Noah seats himself on the bathtub's edge and rests an elbow on his knee and his chin in his clean hand.

There are those ragged nails again.
Staring him in the face.

But this time he smiles, thinking to himself, "I really am nearing the end of this brief period of madness."