In some company it’s difficult to discuss matters of making waste.
That is, to say, defecation and urination.
Dirty words, filthy acts, yet absolutely necessary to all of us. A process we commit multiple times in a day, often routinely. However many find the mention of poop and pee uncouth, best to remain unspoken unless it’s the punchline of a child’s joke.
This is what makes my recent tribulation so distressing.
My pain is not a joke so please hear me through.
I’ve been terrorized by a creature made of shit, piss, toilet paper, blood, tampons, phlegm, tissues, condoms, waste.
Everything we flush away down the drain. Out of our bodies, out of sight and out of mind.
Oh, but our filth has not forgotten us.
I’m of a certain generation thats currently found lacking in wealth. College loans, poor choice in career, a system stacked against me. The most I could afford was a basement converted studio in the underbelly of the city.
I did my best with my home. Decorate with what I had and tried my best to keep it clean. I’d never had a problem with my plumbing before last Monday.
I awoke in the early hours that morning, my bowels churning in distress.
A diet of hyperprocessed fast food loses it’s novelty after the third week of diarrhea. I can only imagine the long term effects of these cheesy chicken quesonachorillas on my body. What more can I afford with such convenience?
I rushed myself to my restroom, willing my intestines to hold back the brown wave. If I could summon such strength in this moment, there is nothing which could prevent me from accomplishing all of my greatest dreams? The wish in this moment was to avoid skids in my boxers.
I turned on the bathroom light. Powder blue tile lining the floor and walls. A simple sink to my left. Tiny shower facing me. The porcelain throne in the corner. Such a familiar, yet welcome site.
If I fumbled for a second, I wouldn’t have been able to control myself further.
With fluid motion, I lifted the lid of the toilet with one hand and slid off my shorts and underwear with the other. Chaining this combo, I secured my rear upon the seat.
I let it rip.
I will not describe the intimate details which followed, but those who’ve had food poisoning know exactly how it goes.
The sense of relief as the brown leaves your bum. The sense of anticipation of more to come. A tinge of pain, a sprinkle of ecstasy. A wiser man would find an analogy for life, I was just here to make due.
Once it was done, I wiped. I flushed. The end.
Except the toilet did not flush.
True horror begins here.
It should have flushed away with the pull of the lever, mostly liquid waste and requisite toilet paper. Chunks of chicken, kernels of corn, the usual.
The mess sadly squelched from the toilet bowl.
I had no plunger. I would not stick my hand in such a nightmare.
I needed a solution. Thank goodness for capitalism.
Via my Target Circle app I was able to conveniently order a plunger, rubber gloves, and Drano with pick up at the door.
I accomplished the task in less than half and hour and returned to my abode.
Frustrated with this inconvenience, but eager to clean up, I opened my bathroom door.
All was not right in my sanctuary.
My nose smelt it before my wary eyes could process a most unwelcome sight.
Shit smeared the walls. Pools of piss flooded the floor. Sodden brown toilet paper crumbled around the room. I vomit in an instant.
And then I saw it.
A filth that escapes words.
There are no accurate descriptors for the mass that stank and skulked in the center of the room. A turgid mass of rot. Shaped in a mockery of the human form. Something the devil himself would sculpt out feces and wax and tissue and hate.
What may have been a visage stared into my soul. Two black voids where it’s pupils would be. Eyes shifted from me to my recent upchuck on the floor.
The shitbeast lunged. Towards the vomit. It consumed.
I saw in disgust that the teeth lining its mouth were kernels of corn, soggy from my own digestive tract. This turned my stomach once more.
I fell back, in fear and disgust.
The shitbeast crawled towards me, further staining my powder blue tile brown and red and yellow.
It hung over me, with a stench beyond words. My lungs were frozen shut.
It pressed against my flesh, warmer than I could bare. Feces staining my skin and soaking into my pores
I browned out. Consciousness lost.
Imagine that your property manager found you unconscious outside your restroom, covered in your own shit. The bathroom is also covered in shit and piss and the upstairs tenant had called him to complain about the smell.
How do you bounce back from that? I’m still trying to figure that one out.
Here I am on the streets. Living under the bridge and all I have is this cellphone and no trace of dignity.
Even worse, I’m even closer to the sewer system now.
Some nights I hear a slushing from beneath the sewage lids. I know what’s under there now. Everything we’ve flushed away is waiting there for us