Sean is receiving nidotherapy and is uncertain about a path forward in life. He is far from sure what he wants to do, suffers from insomnia, depression and self-doubt, and has just written this very short story, that we think shows considerable promise. It is untitled but could be called ‘An Urgent Call to Nature’.
The feeling that came over me was immense. In my youth, I attempted to read the dictionary word for word but this gave a new meaning to the word ‘desperate’. I thought if I left it any longer I might explode, so I began the short ascent up the stairs.
I placed my hand on the bannister, regretting it immediately as I peeled it back from the sticky layer of dried, carbonated drinks. This made me feel depressed, not because I had experienced an unpleasant sensation, but more the fact that our evolutionary line kept disappointing me in the premature acquisitions that seemed so basic on this Friday night in the 21st Century. The beer tasted like fizzy swamp water, sweetened with extract of piss, the music sounded like a borderline paedophile-bait singing an embarrassingly extravagant melody over an overly synthesized backing track, and the wallpaper was accustomed to a shockingly bright orange that was paired somewhat rudely with a near fluorescent pink. Now I’m not the kind of morbid person who hates all people for an unapparent reason; I understand that we are the single most successful species to reach such an optimum level of logical evolution. But when I contemplate that tens of thousands of years later, our most sold beers taste like crap, our most popular music sounds intrusively unmusical, and yet we have achieved such monuments as the Pyramids of Giza and conquered near every landmass on the face of our planet, I can’t help but get that aching feeling right in the pit of my stomach and wish a meteorite would land in the car park outside right now and spare us all the emotions we are going to have to shed on each other’s pathetic achievements, and end this descent of the civilized line that seems to have taken place over the past fifty years.
Relief. The room was empty (apart from the black guy trying to sell aftershave in the corner) so I let out a few farts with it. The steam from my urine was masked by the low lights of the room but I felt the warmth tickle my knuckles nonetheless. Some of my friends were out there chasing girls but I had always been one for the simple pleasures in life. The picture above the toilet was nice. It was painted in watercolours and ran with a blue and green theme which felt very refreshing after the attack on my senses I had been dealing with all night. The stretched canvas over the wooden frame was also a comforting sight after all the fake fire-places, “burning” away in flat-screen TVs we had been associated with in the various bars throughout the evening. The picture depicted a Mediterranean market-place with women selling citrus fruits, fish and… Oh.
My left hand was wet.
I looked down and realised I had pissed all over the rim of the toilet in my momentary fixation with the painting. As I stared at the sunrise yellow resting on the ceramic surface of the toilet, I felt slightly better about the evening. Maybe I don’t want to do it tonight after all? Although what I really couldn’t help but wonder was; why don’t toilet companies build the edge of the toilet at a slight downwards slope?
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