Toilet Wall Quotes

A long white ribbon shot out of the crack in the wall. The ribbon just kept coming, weaving itself into some kind of shape next to Anubis, and my first thought was, My god, he’s got a magic roll of toilet paper.

I wondered if the fire had been out to get me. I wondered if all fire was related, like Dad said all humans were related, if the fire that had burned me that day while I cooked hot dogs was somehow connected o the fire I had flushed down the toilet and the fire burning at the hotel. I didn't have the answers to those questions, but what I did know was that I lived in a world that at any moment could erupt into fire. It was the sort of knowledge that kept you on your toes.

Angela had done a marvelous job, I tell you. The puke was everywhere except the toilet. The walls, the floor, the sinks - even on the ceiling, though don't ask me how she did that. So there I was, perched on all fours, cleaning up the puke at the homecoming dance in my best blue suit, which was exactly what I had wanted to avoid in the first place. And Jamie, my date, was on all fours, too, doing exactly the same thing.

It was a weird sensation. Like getting caught eavesdropping, or lying, or sitting on the toilet and having the bathroom walls suddenly drop away.

The boy looks into Mugwump eyes blank as obsidian mirrors, pools of black blood, glory holes in a toilet wall closing on the Last Erection.

Against all odds, the Academy had come to feel like home. A slimy, moldy, dungeonlike home without working toilets, maybe, but home nevertheless. He and George had even named the rats that lived behind their walls. Every night, they left Jon Cartwright Jr., III, and IV a piece of stale bread to nibble, in hopes they'd prefer the crumbs to human feet.

Baby," groaned the guy-Ted? Tad?-something like that-and crushed his lips against the side of her neck, shoving her face against the wall of the toilet stall.

After about half an hour I give up, thinking he must have stumbled home, when I find him. I'm in the girls' toilets, washing my hands, and I hear drunken poetry being recited from the end stall. I walk down to it, push open the door, and there he is, lying on the ground, his head between the wall and the bowl. "Do you mind? I'm having a private moment here, Rachel." I crouch on the floor beside him. "Here's a tip for a private moment: don't have it on the floor of the girls' toilets." "The girls?" he asks. "The added extras didn't give it away?" He lifts his head and squints at the unit in the opposite corner. "Not a mailbox?" "Not a mailbox, Henry," I say as I try, unsuccessfully, to haul him into a standing position.

The hoodlum-occultist is “sociopathic” enough to, see through the conventional charade, the social mythology of his species. “They’re all sheep,” he thinks. “Marks. Suckers. Waiting to be fleeced.” He has enough contact with some more-or-less genuine occult tradition to know a few of the gimmicks by which “social consciousness,” normally conditioned consciousness, can be suspended. He is thus able to utilize mental brutality in place of the simple physical brutality of the ordinary hooligan. He is quite powerless against those who realize that he is actually a stupid liar. He is stupid because spending your life terrorizing and exploiting your inferiors is a dumb and boring existence for anyone with more than five billion brain cells. Can you imagine Beethoven ignoring the heavenly choirs his right lobe could hear just to pound on the wall and annoy the neighbors? Gödel pushing aside his sublime mathematics to go out and cheat at cards? Van Gogh deserting his easel to scrawl nasty caricatures in the men’s toilet? Mental evil is always the stupidest evil because the mind itself is not a weapon but a potential paradise. Every kind of malice is a stupidity, but occult malice is stupidest of all. To the extent that the mindwarper is not 100 percent charlatan through-and-through (and most of them are), to the extent that he has picked up some real occult lore somewhere, his use of it for malicious purposes is like using Shakespeare’s sonnets for toilet tissue or picking up a Picasso miniature to drive nails. Everybody who has advanced beyond the barbarian stage of evolution can see how pre-human such acts are, except the person doing them. Genuine occult initiation confers “the philosopher’s stone,” “the gold of the wise” and “the elixir of life,” all of which are metaphors for the capacity to greet life with the bravery and love and gusto that it deserves. By throwing this away to indulge in spite, malice and the small pleasure of bullying the credulous, the mindwarper proves himself a fool and a dolt. And the psychic terrorist, besides being a jerk, is always a liar and a fraud. Healing is easier (and more fun) than cursing, to begin with, and cursing usually backfires or misfires. The mindwarper doesn’t want you to know that. He wants you to think he’s omnipotent.

As I was walking to my car, a crow that was sitting on a wall suddenly scooped down and did number two on my head. Luckily I was holding a newspaper on my head at that time because sun was very strong and I didn’t want to become tanned. So thanks god my blow-dried hair didn’t get spoiled. People say it is a good amen when a bird does potty on you, but I am sorry, what’s so good about your head being used as a toilet?

Every time I am shown to an old, dimly lit, and, I would add, impeccably clean toilet in a Nara or Kyoto temple, I am impressed with the singular virtues of Japanese architecture. The parlor may have its charms, but the Japanese toilet truly is a place of spiritual repose. It always stands apart from the main building, at the end of a corridor, in a grove fragrant with leaves and moss. No words can describe that sensation as one sits in the dim light, basking in the faint glow reflected from the shoji, lost in meditation or gazing out at the garden. The novelist Natsume Soseki counted his morning trips to the toilet a great pleasure, ‘a physiological delight’ he called it. And surely there could be no better place to savor this pleasure than a Japanese toilet where, surrounded by tranquil walls and finely grained wood, one looks out upon blue skies and green leaves.

In one hallway, the floor gleaming parquet and the ceiling festooned with golden cherubs, there was a boy in a grumpy cat mask and biker boots, not involved in any sexual activity, legs crossed and leaning against the wall. As a bevy of faeries passed the boy, giggling and groping, the boy scooted away. Alec remembered being younger, and how overwhelming large groups of people had seemed. He came over and leaned against the wall beside the boy. He saw the boy texting, PARTIES WERE INVENTED TO ANNOY ME. THEY FEATURE MY LEAST FAVORITE THING: PEOPLE, ALL INTENT ON MY LEAST FAVORITE ACTIVITY: SOCIAL INTERACTION. “I don’t really like parties either,” Alec said sympathetically. “No hablo italiano,” the boy mumbled without looking up. “Er,” said Alec. “This conversation is happening in English.” “No hablo ingles,” he said without missing a beat. “Oh, come on. Really?” “Worth a shot,” said the boy. Alec considered going away. The boy wrote another text to a contact he had saved as RF. Alec could not help but notice that the conversation was entirely one-sided, the boy sending text after text with no response. The last text read VENICE SMELLS LIKE A TOILET. AS A NEW YORKER, I DO NOT SAY THIS LIGHTLY. The weird coincidence emboldened Alec to try again. “I get shy when there are strangers too,” Alec told the kid. “I’m not shy,” the boy sneered. “I just hate everyone around me and everything that is happening.” “Well.” Alec shrugged. “Those feel like similar things sometimes.” The boy lifted his curly head, pushing the grumpy cat mask off his face, and froze. Alec froze too, at the twin shock of fangs and familiarity. This was a vampire, and Alec knew him. “Raphael?” he asked. “Raphael Santiago?” He wondered what the second-in-command of the New York clan was doing here. Downworlders might be flooding in from all over the world, but Raphael had never struck Alec as a party animal. Of course, he was not exactly coming off as a party animal now. “Oh no, it’s you,” said Raphael. “The twelve-year-old idiot.” Alec was not keen on vampires. They were, after all, people who had died. Alec had seen too much death to want reminders of it. He understood that they were immortal, but there was no need to show off about it. “We just fought a war together. I was with you in the graveyard when Simon came back as a vampire. You’ve seen me multiple times since I was twelve.” “The thought of you at twelve haunts me,” Raphael said darkly. “Okay,” Alec said, humoring him. “So have you seen a guy called Mori Shu anywhere around here?” “I am trying not to make eye contact with anyone here,” said Raphael. “And I’m not a snitch for Shadowhunters. Or a fan of talking to people, of any kind, in any place.” Alec rolled his eyes.

An airplane crossed the sky, and she imagined its interior-people packed in rows like eggs in a carton, the chemical smell of the toilets, pretzels in foil pouches, cans hiss-popping open, black oval of night sky embedded in the rattling walls. How strange that something so drab, so confined, so stifling with sour exhalations and the fumes of indifferent machinery might be mistaken for a star.

Of course not,' Darcy says. 'it's minuscule and the walls are made of toilet paper and Tazo tea bags. Mallory, can you please win that stupid World Championship and move us somewhere your smart checkers money?

The walls of her stall were covered with graffiti. If it had been funny (“Pull here for MFA Degree” right below the toilet paper dispenser) she would’ve stayed longer, but it was mostly weird random names and dates.

Our toilet was in a corrugated-iron outhouse shared among the adjoining houses. Inside, there was a concrete slab with a hole in it and a plastic toilet seat on top; there had been a lid at some point, but it had broken and disappeared long ago. We couldn’t afford toilet paper, so on the wall next to the seat was a wire hanger with old newspaper on it for you to wipe. The newspaper was uncomfortable, but at least I stayed informed while I handled my business.

[...] I wondered why I was acting so calm. I wondered why I didn't writhe against being inside my own body. If I could rip off my skin, I'd leave it in a bloody, shapeless heap on the floor beside the toilet, like so much dirty laundry. I'd beat my head against the wall until there was nothing left of my face, if it would get me outside of myself.

I rushed to the bathroom for every corner of the hospital was suffocating. I got hold of acid-bottle, which was meant for toilet cleaning. As I took it into my hands, I realized I had more filth inside me than a toilet. A toilet could be cleaned by an acid bottle, or a toilet cleaner, but there was no such product that could cleanse a criminal from inside. I felt so ashamed of myself that I couldn’t even look into the eyes of my reflection in the mirror on the wall.

The only furniture in the dank space was a flimsy cot. Water dripped steadily in one corner. A hole in the floor appeared to serve as a latrine. What most caught Kendra's eye were the messages scratched on the wall. She roamed the cell, reading the crudely inscribed phrases. "Seth rules! Welcome to Seth's House. Seth rocks! Seth was here. Now it's your turn. Seth Sorenson forever. Enjoy the food! If you're reading this, you can read. All roads lead to Seth. Is it still dripping? Seth haunts these halls. You're in a Turkish prison! Seth is the man! Use the meal mats as toilet paper." And so forth. Cold, hopeless, and alone, Kendra found herself giggling at the messages her brother had scrawled. He must have been so bored!

I'm up for a Shadow hunt." She tries to let us out, but the lock's stuck. "That's weird." "Is this like an omen?" Daisy asks. Jazz unzips her boot and takes it off so she can slam it at the lock. "It's not an omen." Slam. "Tonight." Slam. "Is going to be great." Slam. "I've got a feeling." Slam. She puts her book back on and looks at us. "Okay, we'll have to climb out of here." She stands on the toilet seat and from there to the toilet-roll holder and then heaves herself over the wall. "Impresive," I say, and then we hear her slam to the ground. "Less impressive," Daisy says. "It doesn't mean anything," Jazz calls. "Trust me. I'm a psychic.

The novelist Natsume Soseki counted his morning trips to the toilet a great pleasure, 'a physiological delight' he called it. And surely there could be no better place to savor this pleasure than a Japanese toilet where, surrounded by tranquil walls and finely grained wood, one looks out upon blue skies and green leaves.

You worked, slaved, fought off the rats, the mice, the roaches, the ants, the Housing Authority, the cops, the muggers, and now the drug dealers. You lived a life of disappointment and suffering, of too-hot summers and too-cold winters, surviving in apartments with crummy stoves that didn’t work and windows that didn’t open and toilets that didn’t flush and lead paint that flecked off the walls and poisoned your children, living in awful, dreary apartments built to house Italians who came to America to work the docks, which had emptied of boats, ships, tankers, dreams, money, and opportunity the moment the colored and the Latinos arrived. And still New York blamed you for all its problems

A brick could be used as toilet paper—especially if you just shit a brick. You could shit and wipe your way to a wall of privacy.


She talked about getting some Pam cooking spray—or WD-40, but Pam was cheaper—because coating the walls of the toilet chutes with it makes waste less likely to stick.

When we got together we would start projects: an alarm clock torn apart and distributed over a wall, a stop-motion video of Lego people having sex, a Web site for pictures of toilets.

Inside my best friend’s kitchen, blood spatters cover every surface—the kitchen table, including the pepper mill, the wall behind the table and much of the tile floor. Even their cat, Psycho, has a blood spatter across her white fur. My eyes, open wide with horror, take in each gruesome detail. Lying on the blood-spattered floor with a cleaver buried in his chest is my best friend’s dad, Mr. Taylor. He’s wearing his chef’s apron from Chez Gourmet, but the apron is more red than white. A trickle of blood leaks from the side of his mouth and drips into his beard, then onto the sticky floor.

Of course not,' Darcy says. 'it's minuscule and the walls are made of toilet paper and Tazo tea bags. Mallory, can you please win that stupid World Champiisnip and move us somewhere your smart checkers money?

That night the Salt Fish Girl came back looking exhausted and dishevelled. A Malaysian girl who worked at her factory had been stricken with hysteria, had gone to the toilet and begun screaming and tearing at her hair. She had been working at the factory for nearly three years and was half blind and bored out of her wits with the tedious repetitiveness of the work. Her hysteria had provoked others, until half the women in the factory were screaming and howling and throwing themselves against the walls in sheer frustration with the dreariness of their toil and the damage it was exacting from their once young bodies and once bright faces.

The light is off, and it is dark. He has one hand pressed against the cold tiles of the wall above the toilet, and with his other hand he is taking aim, such as it is. He’s waiting for his prostate to get out of the way so he can take a well-deserved leak and get back to bed where he belongs, so that if by chance his heart stops this very second, he won’t be found—holding his pecker, dead on the floor—by a bunch of twenty-year-old medics who will gawk at his circumcision and bad luck.

I know everyone else on board did similarly unheralded, unobtrusively helpful things. We’ve all fixed the toilet in space (it breaks down regularly). We’ve all wiped jam off the walls (it has a way of floating off your toast and splattering everywhere).

Moths fly toward burning bulbs not because they’re drunk with love or exhausted from flight, wanting to wait out the pain in their wings, as if waiting was something warm they could wrap themselves around. They fly and die simply because they cannot see what we see. Instead they see stars off in the distance, the same stars we long ago used to navigate the darkness we still know nothing about. It’s hard to imagine what we once needed to know to know where we were. Without depth, with color, the moths look to the light until it calls to them. We are good at thinking we can stay. We are good at finding hurt. I live in a mapped city that keeps expanding like regret. When I look out the window I see a house so close I can hear a toilet flush. At night we take black lights and hunt scorpions stuck to our stucco walls. I walk around darkening rooms not in use, but I cannot stop the sun or streetlights from shining in. We are all aglow. I don’t want to think about the sun burning out or the billion small deaths I continue to cause. Even in the desert, a place whose name I learned to spell by the sweet treat of its opposite, the extra s demanding more, even after all these years of genetics, of rock slides, of canyons cut deep and persistent as a heart, moths spin in circles toward their stars.

~Posters with torn edges hanging from rotten walls~ The doctor told me something once she said STOP DRINKING I slapped her across the face with this NO I walked right out of that office went right down to the hole I told the bartender WHISKEY, MOTHERFUCKER he poured and he poured and I slapped my money down on that bar the man I had been driving around with he just sort of sat there next to this hooker she probably had something rotten way down there between her legs her eyes told of no soul I emptied the bottle down my throat and ordered some chips the bartender told me THEY'RE STALE and I give him a I DON'T FUCKIN' CARE, GIVE ME SOMETHIN' He slid me a ham sandwich dripping with cheap low-fat mayo and said ENJOY I went back to my room and talked all night so much conversation it turned the toilet bowl pale

Moira was like an elevator with open sides. She made us dizzy. Already we were losing the taste for freedom, already we were finding these walls secure. In the upper reaches of the atmosphere you'd come apart, you'd vaporize, there would be no pressure holding you together. Nevertheless Moira was our fantasy. We hugged her to us, she was with us in secret, a giggle; she was lava beneath the crust of daily life. In the light of Moira, the Aunts were less fearsome and more absurd. Their power had a flaw to it. They could be shanghaied in toilets. The audacity was what we liked.

[Stice's] parents had met and fallen in love in a Country/Western bar in Partridge KS — just outside Liberal KS on the Oklahoma border — met and fallen in star-crossed love in a bar playing this popular Kansas C/W-bar-game where they put their bare forearms together and laid a lit cigarette in the little valley between the two forearms' flesh and kept it there till one of them finally jerked their arm away and reeled away holding their arm. Mr. and Mrs. Stice each discovered somebody else that wouldn't jerk away and reel away, Stice explained. Their forearms were still to this day covered with little white slugs of burn-scar. They'd toppled like pines for each other from the git-go, Stice explained. They'd been divorced and remarried four or five times, depending on how you defined certain jurisprudential precepts. When they were on good domestic terms they stayed in their bedroom for days of squeaking springs with the door locked except for brief sallies out for Beefeater gin and Chinese take-out in little white cardboard pails with wire handles, with the Stice children wandering ghostlike through the clapboard house in sagging diapers or woolen underwear subsisting on potato chips out of econobags bigger than most of them were, the Stice kids. The kids did somewhat physically better during periods of nuptial strife, when a stony-faced Mr. Stice slammed the kitchen door and went off daily to sell crop insurance while Mrs. Stice —whom both Mr. Stice and The Darkness called 'The Bride' —while The Bride spent all day and evening cooking intricate multicourse meals she'd feed bits of to The Brood (Stice refers to both himself and his six siblings as 'The Brood') and then keep warm in quietly rattling-lidded pots and then hurl at the kitchen walls when Mr. Stice came home smelling of gin and of cigarette-brands and toilet-eau not The Bride's own. Ortho Stice loves his folks to distraction, but not blindly, and every holiday home to Partridge KS he memorizes highlights of their connubial battles so he can regale the E.T.A. upperclass-men with them, mostly at meals, after the initial forkwork and gasping have died down and people have returned to sufficient levels of blood-sugar and awareness of their surroundings to be regaled.

Who can think of Larkin now without considering his fondness for the buttocks of schoolgirls and paranoid hatred of blacks … Or Eric Gill’s copulations with more or less every member of his family, including the dog? Proust had rats tortured, and donated his family furniture to brothels; Dickens walled up his wife and kept her from her children; Lillian Hellman lied. While Sartre lived with his mother, Simone de Beauvoir pimped babes for him; he envied Camus, before trashing him. John Cheever loitered in toilets, nostrils aflare, before returning to his wife. P.G. Wodehouse made broadcasts for the Nazis; Mailer stabbed his second wife. Two of Ted Hughes’s lovers had killed themselves. And as for Styron, Salinger, Saroyan … Literature was a killing field; no decent person had ever picked up a pen.

Life in the Cause would lurch forward as it always did. You worked, slaved, fought off the rats, the mice, the roaches, the ants, the Housing Authority, the cops, the muggers, and now the drug dealers. You lived a life of disappointment and suffering, of too-hot summers and too-cold winters, surviving in apartments with crummy stoves that didn’t work and windows that didn’t open and toilets that didn’t flush and lead paint that flecked off the walls and poisoned your children, living in awful, dreary apartments built to house Italians who came to America to work the docks, which had emptied of boats, ships, tankers, dreams, money, and opportunity the moment the colored and the Latinos arrived. And still New York blamed you for all its problems. And who can you blame? You were the one who chose to live here, in this hard town with its hard people, the financial capital of the world, land of opportunity for the white man and a tundra of spent dreams and empty promises for anyone else stupid enough to believe the hype. Sister Gee stared at her neighbors as they surrounded her, and at that moment she saw them as she had never seen them before: they were crumbs, thimbles, flecks of sugar powder on a cookie, invisible, sporadic dots on the grid of promise, occasionally appearing on Broadway stages or on baseball teams with slogans like “You gotta believe,” when in fact there was nothing to believe but that one colored in the room is fine, two is twenty, and three means close up shop and everybody go home; all living the New York dream in the Cause Houses, within sight of the Statue of Liberty, a gigantic copper reminder that this city was a grinding factory that diced the poor man’s dreams worse than any cotton gin or sugarcane field from the old country. And now heroin was here to make their children slaves again, to a useless white powder. She looked them over, the friends of her life, staring at her. They saw what she saw, she realized. She read it in their faces. They would never win. The game was fixed. The villains would succeed. The heroes would die.

I remember that one Holy Week, the magazine I got every Thursday, Anteojito, came with a free poster depicting the Stations of the Cross. I burned the poster and flushed the ashes down the toilet to dispose of the evidence. The idea that I was supposed to pin this graphic depiction of torture and death on my wall seemed to me as obscene as if someone had suggested decorating my room with pictures of the inner workings of Auschwitz.

For years of mornings, I have woken wanting to die. Life itself twists into nightmare. For years, I have pulled the covers up over my head, dreading to begin another day I’d be bound to just wreck. Years, I lie listening to the taunt of names ringing off my interior walls, ones from the past that never drifted far and away: Loser. Mess. Failure. They are signs nailed overhead, nailed through me, naming me. The stars are blinking out. Funny, this. Yesterday morning, the morning before, all these mornings, I wake to the discontent of life in my skin. I wake to self-hatred. To the wrestle to get it all done, the relentless anxiety that I am failing. Always, the failing. I yell at children, fester with bitterness, forget doctor appointments, lose library books, live selfishly, skip prayer, complain, go to bed too late, neglect cleaning the toilets. I live tired. Afraid. Anxious. Weary. Years, I feel it in the veins, the pulsing of ruptured hopes. Would I ever be enough, find enough, do enough?

It was in this last job that Osman formed most of his convictions about his fellow human beings. No one should try to philosophize on the nature of humanity until they had worked in a public toilet for a couple of weeks and seen the things that people did, simply because they could – destroying the water hose on the wall, breaking the door handle, drawing nasty graffiti everywhere, peeing on the hand towels, depositing every kind of filth and muck all over the place, knowing that someone else would have to clean it up.

The day came: a Monday at the end of September. The night before he had realized that it was almost exactly a year since the beating, although he hadn’t planned it that way. He left work early that evening. He had spent the weekend organizing his projects; he had written Lucien a memo detailing the status of everything he had been working on. At home, he lined up his letters on the dining room table, and a copy of his will. He had left a message with Richard’s studio manager that the toilet in the master bathroom kept running and asked if Richard could let in the plumber the following day at nine – both Richard and Willem had a set of keys to his apartment – because he would be away on business. He took off his suit jacket and tie and shoes and watch and went to the bathroom. He sat in the shower area with his sleeves pushed up. He had a glass of scotch, which he sipped at to steady himself, and a box cutter, which he knew would be easier to hold than a razor. He knew what he needed to do: three straight vertical lines, as deep and long as he could make them, following the veins up both arms. And then he would lie down and wait. He waited for a while, crying a bit, because he was tired and frightened and because he was ready to go, he was ready to leave. Finally he rubbed his eyes and began. He started with his left arm. He made the first cut, which was more painful than he had thought it would be, and he cried out. Then he made the second. He took another drink of the scotch. The blood was viscous, more gelatinous than liquid, and a brilliant, shimmering oil-black. Already his pants were soaked with it, already his grip was loosening. He made the third. When he was done with both arms, he slumped against the back of the shower wall. He wished, absurdly, for a pillow. He was warm from the scotch, and from his own blood, which lapped at him as it pooled against his legs – his insides meeting his outsides, the inner bathing the outer. He closed his eyes. Behind him, the hyenas howled, furious at him. Before him stood the house with its open door. He wasn’t close yet, but he was closer than he’d been: close enough to see that inside, there was a bed where he could rest, where he could lie down and sleep after his long run, where he would, for the first time in his life, be safe.

For a detained patriot, breaking through the doubled walls of gray silence, attempting even a symbolic link with the outside world, is an act of resistance And resistance--even at the level of merely asserting one's rights, of maintaining one's ideological beliefs in the face of a programmed onslaught--is in fact the only way political prisoners can maintain their sanity and humanity. Resistance is the only means of trying to prevent a breakdown. The difficulty lies in the fact that in this effort one must rely first and foremost on one's own resources (writing defiance on toilet paper for instance), and nobody can teach one how to do it.

In itself a wall on which a panoramic view of a non-existent world is drawn does not change. But for a great deal of money you can buy a view from the window with a painted sun, a sky-blue bay and a calm evening. Unfortunately the author of this fragment will again be Ed—but even this is not important, because the very window the view is bought for is also only drawn in. Then perhaps the wall on which it is drawn is a drawing too? But drawn by whom and on what? He raised his eyes to the wall of the toilet as though in hopes of an answer there. Traced on the tiles in red felt-tip pen were the jolly, rounded letters of a brief slogan: "Trapped? Masturbate!

Lance, cut Jaylynn to stretch her out, to get the baby away from this new mommy, with the same pair of dull school scissors. At that time, he took the helpless baby away from her, and said that he was going to get rid of it… and there was nothing she could do to stop it. Furthermore, he just let Jaylynn there sitting on the toilet to bleed to death, I guess that is when she had enough pain, and not long after that, she cut her wrist… and I lost two girls… to the curse of the Tower! Maybe that is when my struggle with affection began. Raged Lance or as I called him walked away, but later that year he put a rifle in his mouth, and he blew his brains, and other things, all over his bedroom walls, on a life-size poster of my little daughter.

Prisoners drank water piped in from the river, the same river that other convicts located upstream used as a toilet. “[I]t is a water that no population of human creatures inside or outside of the prison walls should be condemned to drink,” the inspector wrote. Rows of coke ovens outside their barracks turned the coal into the carbon-rich fuel coal companies used to produce the steel for the railroad tracks it was laying throughout the South. Convicts breathed gas, carbon, and soot from the stoves every night. The emissions killed the trees for hundreds of yards around. Yet according to a report by Alabama’s inspector of convicts, the high mortality rates were based not on the conditions of their incarceration but on the “debased moral condition of the negro . . . whose systems are poisoned beyond medical aid by the loathsome diseases incident to the unrestrained indulgence of lust . . . now that they are deprived of the control and care of a master.

Moira was out there somewhere. She was at large, or dead. What would she do? The thought of what she would do expanded till it filled the room. At any moment there might be a shattering explosion, the glass of the windows would fall inward, the doors would swing open. . . . Moira had power now, she’d been set loose, she’d set herself loose. She was now a loose woman. I think we found this frightening. Moira was like an elevator with open sides. She made us dizzy. Already we were losing the taste for freedom, already we were finding these walls secure. In the upper reaches of the atmosphere you’d come apart, you’d vaporize, there would be no pressure holding you together. Nevertheless Moira was our fantasy. We hugged her to us, she was with us in secret, a giggle; she was lava beneath the crust of daily life. In the light of Moira, the Aunts were less fearsome and more absurd. Their power had a flaw to it. They could be shanghaied in toilets. The audacity was what we liked.

The photographer was taking pictures with a small pocket camera but the sergeant sent him back to the car for his big Bertillon camera. Grave Digger and Coffin Ed left the cellar to look around. The apartment was only one room wide but four storeys high. The front was flush with the sidewalk, and the front entrance elevated by two recessed steps. The alleyway at the side slanted down from the sidewalk sufficiently to drop the level of the door six feet below the ground-floor level. The cellar, which could only be entered by the door at the side, was directly below the ground-floor rooms. There were no apartments. Each of the four floors had three bedrooms opening on to the public hall, and to the rear was a kitchen and a bath and a separate toilet to serve each floor. There were three tenants on each floor, their doors secured by hasps and staples to be padlocked when they were absent, bolts and chains and floor locks and angle bars to protect them from intruders when they were present. The doors were pitted and scarred either because of lost keys or attempted burglary, indicating a continuous warfare between the residents and enemies from without, rapists, robbers, homicidal husbands and lovers, or the landlord after his rent. The walls were covered with obscene graffiti, mammoth sexual organs, vulgar limericks, opened legs, telephone numbers, outright boasting, insidious suggestions, and impertinent or pertinent comments about various tenants’ love habits, their mothers and fathers, the legitimacy of their children. “And people live here,” Grave Digger said, his eyes sad. “That’s what it was made for.” “Like maggots in rotten meat.” “It’s rotten enough.” Twelve mailboxes were nailed to the wall in the front hall. Narrow stairs climbed to the top floor. The ground-floor hallway ran through a small back courtyard where four overflowing garbage cans leaned against the wall. “Anybody can come in here day or night,” Grave Digger said. “Good for the whores but hard on the children.” “I wouldn’t want to live here if I had any enemies,” Coffin Ed said. “I’d be scared to go to the john.” “Yeah, but you’d have central heating.” “Personally, I’d rather live in the cellar. It’s private with its own private entrance and I could control the heat.” “But you’d have to put out the garbage cans,” Grave Digger said. “Whoever occupied that whore’s crib ain’t been putting out any garbage cans.” “Well, let’s wake up the brothers on the ground floor.” “If they ain’t already awake.

I’ll go myself,” the sergeant said tersely. He was getting annoyed. The stairway went down underneath the ground floor to a depth of about eight feet. A short paved corridor ran in front of the boiler room at right angles to the stairs, where each end was closed off by unpainted panelled doors. Both the stairs and the corridor felt like loose gravel underfoot, but otherwise they were clean. Splotches of blood were more in evidence in the corridor and a bloody hand mark showed clearly on the unpainted door to the rear. “Let’s not touch anything,” the sergeant cautioned, taking out a clean white handkerchief to handle the doorknob. “I better call the fingerprint crew,” the photographer said. “No, Joe will call them; I’ll need you. And you local fellows better wait outside, we’re so crowded in here we’ll destroy the evidence.” “Ed and I won’t move,” Grave Digger said. Coffin Ed grunted. Taking no further notice of them, the sergeant pushed open the door. It was black and dark inside. First he shone his light over the wall alongside the door and all over the corridor looking for electric light switches. One was located to the right of each door. Taking care to avoid stepping in any of the blood splotches, the sergeant moved from one switch to another, but none worked. “Blown fuse,” he muttered, picking his way back to the open room. Without having to move, Grave Digger and Coffin Ed could see all they wanted through the open door. Originally made to accommodate a part-time janitor or any type of laborer who would fire the boiler for a place to sleep, the room had been converted into a pad. All that remained of the original was a partitioned-off toilet in one corner and a washbasin in the other. An opening enclosed by heavy wire mesh opened into the boiler room, serving for both ventilation and heat. Otherwise the room was furnished like a boudoir. There was a dressing-table with a triple mirror, three-quarter bed with chenille spread, numerous foam-rubber pillows in a variety of shapes, three round yellow scatter rugs. On the whitewashed walls an obscene mural had been painted in watercolors depicting black and white silhouettes in a variety of perverted sex acts, some of which could only be performed by male contortionists. And everything was splattered with blood, the walls, the bed, the rugs. The furnishings were not so much disarrayed, as though a violent struggle had taken place, but just bloodied. “Mother-raper stood still and let his throat be cut,” Grave Digger observed. “Wasn’t that,” Coffin Ed corrected. “He just didn’t believe it is all.

Is giving me useless cutlery really necessary?” I said, stabbing my toast with the knife instead of slicing it. “The sovereign is concerned that you will try to end your life before the appropriate time,” Eijeh said. The appropriate time. I wondered if Eijeh had chosen my manner of death, then. The oracle, plucking the ideal future from an array of options. “End my life with this thing? My fingernails are sharper.” I brought the knife down, point first, on the mattress. I slammed it so hard the bed frame shuddered, and let go. The knife fell over, not even sharp enough to penetrate fabric. I winced, not even sure what part of my body hurt. “I suppose he thinks you’re creative enough to find a way,” Eijeh said softly. I stuffed the last bite of toast into my mouth and sat back against the wall, my arms folded. We were in one of the polished, glossy cells in the belly of the amphitheater, beneath the stadium seats that were already filling with people hungry to watch me die. I had won the last challenge, but I was running out of strength. This morning walking to the toilet had been a feat. “How sweet,” I said, spreading my arms wide to display my bruises. “See how my brother loves me?” “You’re making jokes,” Ryzek said from just outside the cell. I could hear him, muffled, through the glass wall that separated us. “You must be getting desperate.

If anything, the LAPD had long and famously been guilty of overreaction, as they had shown, for example, during the infamous 1988 raid on two small, adjacent apartment buildings on South Central’s Dalton Avenue. There, eighty LAPD officers had stormed the buildings looking for drugs on a bullshit tip. After handcuffing the terrorized residents—including small children and their grandparents—they then spent the next several hours tearing all the toilets from the floors; smashing in walls, stairwells, bedroom sets, and televisions with sledgehammers; slashing open furniture; and then sending it all crashing through windows into the front yard and arresting anyone who happened by to watch. As they were leaving, the officers spray-painted a large board located down the street with some graffiti. “LAPD Rules,” read one message; “Rolling 30s Die” read another. So completely uninhabitable were the apartments rendered that the Red Cross had to provide the occupants with temporary shelter, as if some kind of natural disaster had occurred. No gang members lived there, no charges were ever filed. In the end, the city paid $3.8 million to the victims of the destruction. A report later written by LAPD assistant chief Robert Vernon called it “a poorly planned and executed field operation [that] involved . . . an improperly focused and supervised aggressive attitude of police officers, supervisors and managers toward being ‘at war’ with gang members.” The

The school regime refused to make it easy for us on the dress side of things, and it dictated that even if we wanted to walk into the neighboring town of Windsor, then we had to wear a blazer and tie. This made us prime targets for the many locals who seemed to enjoy an afternoon of beating up the Eton “toffs.” On one occasion, I was having a pee in the loos of the Windsor McDonald’s, which were tucked away downstairs at the back of the fast-food joint. I was just leaving the Gents when the door swung open, and in walked three aggressive-looking lads. They looked as if they had struck gold on discovering this weedy, blazer-wearing Eton squirt, and I knew deep down that I was in trouble and alone. (Meanwhile, my friends were waiting for me upstairs. Some use they were being.) I tried to squeeze past these hoodies, but they threw me back against the wall and laughed. They then proceeded to debate what they were going to do to me. “Flush his head down the toilet,” was an early suggestion. (Well, I had had that done to me many times already at Eton, I thought to myself.) I was okay so far. Then they suggested defecating in the loo first. Now I was getting worried. Then came the killer blow: “Let’s shave his pubes!” Now, there is no greater embarrassment for a young teenager than being discovered to not have any pubes. And I didn’t. That was it. I charged at them, threw one of them against the wall, barged the other aside, squeezed through the door, and bolted. They chased after me, but once I reached the main floor of the McDonald’s I knew I was safe. I waited with my friends inside until we were sure the thugs had all left, then cautiously slunk back across the bridge to school. (I think we actually waited more than two hours, to be safe. Fear teaches great patience.)

For most people moving is a tiring experience. When on the verge of moving out to a new home or into a new office, it's only natural to focus on your new place and forget about the one you’re leaving. Actually, the last thing you would even think about is embarking on a heavy duty move out clean. However, you can be certain that agents, landlords and all the potential renters or buyers of your old home will most definitely notice if it's being cleaned, therefore getting the place cleaned up is something that you need to consider. The process of cleaning will basically depend to things; how dirty your property and the size of the home. If you leave the property in good condition, you'll have a higher the chance of getting back your bond deposit or if you're selling, attracting a potential buyer. Below are the steps you need to consider before moving out. You should start with cleaning. Remove all screws and nails from the walls and the ceilings, fill up all holes and dust all ledges. Large holes should be patched and the entire wall checked the major marks. Remove all the cobwebs from the walls and ceilings, taking care to wash or vacuum the vents. They can get quite dusty. Clean all doors and door knobs, wipe down all the switches, electrical outlets, vacuum/wipe down the drapes, clean the blinds and remove all the light covers from light fixtures and clean them thoroughly as they may contain dead insects. Also, replace all the burnt out light bulbs and empty all cupboards when you clean them. Clean all windows, window sills and tracks. Vacuum all carpets or get them professionally cleaned which quite often is stipulated in the rental agreement. After you've finished the general cleaning, you can now embark on the more specific areas. When cleaning the bathroom, wash off the soap scum and remove mould (if any) from the bathroom tiles. This can be done by pre-spraying the tile grout with bleach and letting it sit for at least half an hour. Clean all the inside drawers and vanity units thoroughly. Clean the toilet/sink, vanity unit and replace anything that you've damaged. Wash all shower curtains and shower doors plus all other enclosures. Polish the mirrors and make sure the exhaust fan is free of dust. You can generally vacuum these quite easily. Finally, clean the bathroom floors by vacuuming and mopping. In the kitchen, clean all the cabinets and liners and wash the cupboards inside out. Clean the counter-tops and shine the facet and sink. If the fridge is staying give it a good clean. You can do this by removing all shelves and wash them individually. Thoroughly degrease the oven inside and out. It's best to use and oven cleaner from your supermarket, just take care to use gloves and a mask as they can be quite toxic. Clean the kitchen floor well by giving it a good vacuum and mop . Sometimes the kitchen floor may need to be degreased. Dust the bedrooms and living room, vacuum throughout then mop. If you have a garage give it a good sweep. Also cut the grass, pull out all weeds and remove all items that may be lying or hanging around. Remember to put your garbage bins out for collection even if collection is a week away as in our experience the bins will be full to the brim from all the rubbish during the moving process. If this all looks too hard then you can always hire a bond cleaner to tackle the job for you or if you're on a tight budget you can download an end of lease cleaning checklist or have one sent to you from your local agent. Just make sure you give yourself at least a day or to take on the job. Its best not to rush through the job, just make sure everything is cleaned thoroughly, so it passes the inspection in order for you to get your bond back in full.

Suddenly he felt his foot catch on something and he stumbled over one of the trailing cables that lay across the laboratory floor. The cable went tight and pulled one of the instruments monitoring the beam over, sending it falling sideways and knocking the edge of the frame that held the refractive shielding plate in position. For what seemed like a very long time the stand wobbled back and forth before it tipped slowly backwards with a crash. ‘Take cover!’ Professor Pike screamed, diving behind one of the nearby workbenches as the other Alpha students scattered, trying to shield themselves behind the most solid objects they could find. The beam punched straight through the laboratory wall in a cloud of vapour and alarm klaxons started wailing all over the school. Professor Pike scrambled across the floor towards the bundle of thick power cables that led to the super-laser, pulling them from the back of the machine and extinguishing the bright green beam. ‘Oops,’ Franz said as the emergency lighting kicked in and the rest of the Alphas slowly emerged from their hiding places. At the back of the room there was a perfectly circular, twenty-centimetre hole in the wall surrounded by scorch marks. ‘I am thinking that this is not being good.’ Otto walked cautiously up to the smouldering hole, glancing nervously over his shoulder at the beam emitter that was making a gentle clicking sound as it cooled down. ‘Woah,’ he said as he peered into the hole. Clearly visible were a series of further holes beyond that got smaller and smaller with perspective. Dimly visible at the far end was what could only be a small circle of bright daylight. ‘Erm, I don’t know how to tell you this, Franz,’ Otto said, turning towards his friend with a broad grin on his face, ‘but it looks like you just made a hole in the school.’ ‘Oh dear,’ Professor Pike said, coming up beside Otto and also peering into the hole. ‘I do hope that we haven’t damaged anything important.’ ‘Or anyone important,’ Shelby added as she and the rest of the Alphas gathered round. ‘It is not being my fault,’ Franz moaned. ‘I am tripping over the cable.’ A couple of minutes later, the door at the far end of the lab hissed open and Chief Dekker came running into the room, flanked by two guards in their familiar orange jumpsuits. Otto and the others winced as they saw her. It was well known already that she had no particular love for H.I.V.E.’s Alpha stream and she seemed to have a special dislike for their year in particular. ‘What happened?’ she demanded as she strode across the room towards the Professor. Her thin, tight lips and sharp cheekbones gave the impression that she was someone who’d heard of this thing called smiling but had decided that it was not for her. ‘There was a slight . . . erm . . . malfunction,’ the Professor replied with a fleeting glance in Franz’s direction. ‘Has anyone been injured?’ ‘It doesn’t look like it,’ Dekker replied tersely, ‘but I think it’s safe to say that Colonel Francisco won’t be using that particular toilet cubicle again.’ Franz visibly paled at the thought of the Colonel finding out that he had been in any way responsible for whatever indignity he had just suffered. He had a sudden horribly clear vision of many laps of the school gym somewhere in his not too distant future.

The Greek word metron means our place of influence or sphere of authority. We can always tell the size of our metron by the faith or confidence we have in our ability to complete a mission or accomplish a task. When we find ourselves feeling overwhelmed by circumstances or situations, it can be a sign that we have traveled outside our metron, exposing the low places of our walls. I have watched many people try to take on someone else’s metron, only to find themselves drowning in the storm-tossed seas of self-doubt and discouragement. But when we remain inside our own metron, we have faith for our calling that manifests as confidence in our God-given ability to fulfill our mission. Whether we are cleaning toilets or leading a country, we should never lose sight of the fact that whenever we are doing something for God, we are doing a great work that makes our life worth living. This sense of significance is a powerful weapon of warfare against the hordes of hell. Significance is an invisible force field that protects our confidence in God. It is a shield of faith for our souls. When we forget that what we are doing with our lives matters to God, we leave the gates of our hearts unguarded, accessible to enemy influence.

Close to the left of the school entrance gate are uncompleted rooms which lack everything else but a base foundation and load-bearing walls. And as for the toilets - in all six years of my life as a student, I never used them once, as they were hardly ever clean. The sight of decayed excrement and worms crawling all over the floors and toilet seats was enough to make one lose interest in passing out waste. One fateful day, I held back the faeces in my anus and walked the mile-long journey home from school. It was painful yet needful as anything would be better than having to do my business in a smelly worm-infested room. No sane individual would subject their own human waste to that kind of treatment. We are all kidding ourselves - OGS is not a school, it is an extension of Kirikiri prison!

I think I need to go to the restroom,’ Lottie said, suddenly wanting to get away from all the stares. ‘I’m coming with you,’ Jamie replied automatically, before realizing what he’d just said. ‘I mean, I’ll wait outside,’ he said, correcting himself and leaning against the wall next to the ladies’ toilets

«And now? Now that you've peeked behind the curtain and gotten to see the real Jude, am I still perfect?» I asked with a wolfish grin. «No.» She laughed. «You snore when you're sick, and you never put the toilet seat down. And don't get me started on the empty cereal boxes in the pantry.» I chucked under my breath. «But I wouldn't want you any other way,» she said with sincerity. [...] «You know,» I began, «you're not perfect anymore either.» «Oh, yeah?» «The minute I saw those feminine products all over my bathroom, you suddenly became a little less perfect.» She laughed, shaking her head. «Tampons? Really? Holding my hair back in the hospital while I puked my guts out didn't do it?» «No. That just reminded me how strong you were,» I answered honestly. «How strong you still are.»

«And now? Now that you've peeked behind the curtain and gotten to see the real Jude, am I still perfect?» I asked with a wolfish grin. «No.» She laughed. «You snore when you're sick, and you never put the toilet seat down. And don't get me started on the empty cereal boxes in the pantry.» I chuckled under my breath. «But I wouldn't want you any other way,» she said with sincerity. [...] «You know,» I began, «you're not perfect anymore either.» «Oh, yeah?» «The minute I saw those feminine products all over my bathroom, you suddenly became a little less perfect.» She laughed, shaking her head. «Tampons? Really? Holding my hair back in the hospital while I puked my guts out didn't do it?» «No. That just reminded me how strong you were,» I answered honestly. «How strong you still are.»

For the first time I felt as though I was in a Third World country. This was a land of improvisation, poor sanitation and no services for the traveller beyond the most basic petrol stations with nothing for sale except cheap fuel, hot water for tea and a hole in the ground for a toilet. Building and planning regulations were obviously open to interpretation, if not entirely ignored outside of the cities; houses were crumbling, newly built breezeblock walls often comically wonky, and electricity and plumbing either non-existent or improvised.

Covert work like this contained some surprising facets. It was known that Soviet bases were not provided with toilet paper and men often resorted to using communications sheets or pages torn from manuals. So all Allied intelligence teams were equipped with rubber gloves and plastic bags so they could trawl through waste-disposal areas looking for redeemable information.

When doing the property inspection, take note of the following things: • Mold and mildew • Undocumented pets • Broken window blinds •  Holes in doors or in walls •  Evidence of extra people living in the unit •  Smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors (if required)—make sure they exist, are up to code, and work •  Leaks under the kitchen and bathroom sinks •  Dripping water from the bathroom or kitchen sink • Dripping water from the bathtub •  Whether the toilet is continuously running • General cleanliness of the property •  Items piled against heaters or other fire dangers

Rae changed into her bathrobe too. Over the gap in her bedroom wall, she called out, “What’re you trying to butter me up for?” She was the one who should’ve been cooking an Elle-belle scramblette. “Have I been replaced as maid of honor by Comedian Courtney?” The couple of times Rae had tried to make plans with Ellen recently, Ellen had been out with a woman from work named Courtney, who was apparently “the most hilarious human in the history of humanity.” Rae had mentally tallied the ways in which she was no doubt funnier than Courtney before coming to the conclusion that, given that her core competency was her heart, not her humor, she should lean into her differentiation rather than conforming to the competition’s friendship model. Would Courtney wipe Ellen’s vomit from the toilet seat or put poems on her pillows? Rae didn’t think so. “Maid-of-honor duties are safe,” Ellen said, handing her a plate of Rae-bae scramblette. “It’s just …” “What?” Ellen said the next sentence very quickly, as if it were a single ten-syllable word. “Aaron wants us to move in together.

The cacophony of county jail is deafening: That's what hap- pens when you jam thousands of women into concrete rooms that were intended to house a population half our size. We sleep in bunk beds in the common areas, feet away from the tables where we play cards and read all day. We urinate in overwhelmed toilets that clog and overflow. We stand in lines for showers, meals, hair- cuts, telephones, meds. At all hours of the day and night, the con- crete echoes with screams and prayers and tears and laughter and curses. There is nothing to do here but wait. I mill around the common room in my canary-yellow prison suit, watching the hands of the clock in the cage on the wall slowly ticking away the minutes of the days. I wait for mealtime, though I have no interest in eating the gray slurry that slides around tray. I wait for the library cart to come around, so I can pick out the least offensive romance novel on offer. I wait for lights-out, so that I can lie in my upper bunk in the semi-dark, listening to the snores and whispers of my fellow inmates while I wait for sleep to come. my It hardly ever does. But mostly, I wait for someone to come help me.

C. was reminded of another little significant-seeming episode: Once he’d had to spend a night in jail in A.—the main town of the district he came from—and realized right away that he’d never get a single minute’s sleep in the hole they’d locked him up in. His cell was probably used as a drunk tank; traces of the catastrophes attendant to the drying-out process were visible all around… In the GDR, thought C., succumbing to alcohol still made for indelible images, so it was not entirely unreasonable for writers and artists to spend their time drinking. The cell whose door slammed behind him consisted of several cubic yards of bad smells, and contained a cot, a broken-down chair, and a cracked toilet that wouldn’t stop running and stood in a puddle of sludge. On the wall behind the cot, a broad swath of vomit trailed down, already dried; the dim light of a 25 watt bulb showed the walls covered from top to bottom with unidentifiable filth—possibly human excrement—spatters of blood, and countless inscriptions: scratched messages and addresses. It was enough reading material to last him all night. One of the first slogans he read stated straight out: Long live capitalism.

When I stepped on the pedal below the sink to flush the toilet, the whole plastic sink unit came away from the wall of the portaloo and – to my absolute horror – my phone plunged down the abyss. It would be fair to say that pushing my arm into the dark unknown of a portaloo in the middle of the night in Bangalore was something of a low point.

We couldn't afford toilet paper, so on the wall next to the seat was a wire hanger with old newspaper on it for you to wipe. The newspaper was uncomfortable, but at least I stayed informed while I handled my business.

My room was... a dream. ... Like the upstairs living area, its windows were open to the brutal world beyond- no glass, no shutters- and sheer amethyst curtains fluttered in that unnatural soft breeze. The large bed was a creamy white-and-ivory concoction, with pillows and blankets and throws for days, made more inviting by the twin golden lamps beside it. An armoire and dressing table occupied a wall, framed by those glass-less windows. Across the room, a chamber with a porcelain sink and toilet lay behind an arched wooden door, but the bath... The bath. Occupying the other half of the bedroom, my bathtub was actually a pool, hanging right off the mountain itself. A pool for soaking and or enjoying myself. Its far edge seemed to disappear into nothing, the water flowing silently off the side and into the night beyond. A narrow ledge on the adjacent wall was lined with fat, guttering candles whose glow gilded the dark, glassy surface and wafting tendrils of steam. Open, airy, plush, and... calm. The room was fit for an empress. With the marble floors, silks, velvets, and elegant details, only an empress could have afforded it. I tried not to think what Rhys' chamber was like, if this was how he treated his guests. Guest- not prisoner. Well... the room proved it.

Sometimes, when we didn’t have information to go after specific drug dealers, we still messed with them. The dopers were always poised to flush their drugs when they thought the cops were coming. Any night of the week, we could go into one of the ramshackle apartment buildings in Minneapolis, pound on the wall, shout, “Police,” and hear ten toilets flush simultaneously.

Unfortunately for Jemma, all of this prevented me from doing what she probably wanted most: simply closing the bathroom door. It now swung all the way open, so that Jemma was still fully visible on the toilet when three more Secret Service agents came charging up the stairs. All of them had their weapons drawn, ready for action. Jemma screamed again, then kicked the bathroom door shut in their faces. The agents now shifted their attention to me, yanking me off the floor and shoving me up against the wall. Several pairs of hands roughly frisked me at once. I tried to explain what had happened, but the first Secret Service agent had knocked the wind out of me when she’d tackled me. All that came out was a wheeze of air. “Miss Stern?” the biggest of the agents called through the bathroom door. “Miss, is everything all right in there?” “No, everything isn’t all right!” Jemma yelled back. “That little pervert walked in on me!” “It was an accident,” I gasped. “She hadn’t locked the door.” “I shouldn’t have to lock the door in my own house!” Jemma cried. “This is the most secure building in the country! I wasn’t expecting a pervert to be on the loose here!” The Secret Service agents all looked at me accusingly. “I’m not a pervert,” I said quickly. “I’m a friend of Jason’s, here to hang out.” This didn’t seem to convince the agents of anything. “I wasn’t informed of any playdate today,” the big agent said. “It’s not a playdate,” I said quickly. “And it was kind of last-minute. Maybe they forgot to tell you.” “Or maybe you’re a pervert who snuck in here to see Jemma Stern on the toilet,” the agent replied suspiciously. The agent who’d tackled me was massaging her back where she’d been gouged by the stuffed eagle. She pounded on Jason’s door and said, “Jason, could you please come out here?” “I’m busy!” Jason shouted back. I figured he had certainly heard all the commotion in the hall but was willfully ignoring it. “It’s a matter of national security,” the wounded agent said. Jason groaned, and then the sound of his video game paused. His footsteps slowly thumped across the floor. “Could you all possibly handle this somewhere else?” Jemma asked through the bathroom door. “I could really use some privacy.” “We’re taking care of this as quickly as we can, miss,” the female agent informed her. “Feel free to go on with your business.” “You have got to be kidding me,” Jemma groaned.

With its glass walls, you can enjoy the view even when it’s raining. It has a huge outdoor terrace with a panoramic view across the city, but the big draw is that you are up high, directly in front of the ‘cricket cage’ balustrade of Brunelleschi’s dome. Just between you and me, the Folco Portinari–Dante connection had me sold before I even arrived. It could have had a view of the men’s toilets and I still would have been thrilled, just because I love the Alighieri-Portinari story! (See Chapter 23: A Walk With Dante.) My first time here was with the city archivist I told you about in the chapter on the Duomo, so I associate this place with cool local 30-somethings with fascinating jobs in the city and endless stories about Florence, dating back to Julius Caesar. Caffeteria della Oblate is a little tricky to find, but that means the tourist crowd can’t find it either, so walking around in circles trying to get here is worth it. And of course, there’s that view… Address: Via dell’ Oriuolo, 26

Southie High is just as big a mess as Roxbury High. Same exploding toilets, cracked heating pipes, water damage to the walls, mold, peeling paint, out-of-date textbooks with the pages falling out.

Every time I am shown to an old, dimly lit, and, I would add, impeccably clean toilet in a Nara or Kyoto temple, I am impressed with the singular virtues of Japanese architecture. The parlor may have its charms, but the Japanese toilet is truly a place of spiritual repose. It always stands apart from the main building, at the end of a corridor, in a grove fragrant with leaves and moss. No words can describe that sensation as one sits in the dim light, basking in the faint glow reflected from the shoji, lost in meditation or gazing out at the garden. The novelist Natsume Sōseki counted his morning trips to the toilet a great pleasure, “a physiological delight” he called it. And surely there could be no better place to savor this pleasure than a Japanese toilet where, surrounded by tranquil walls and finely grained wood, one looks out upon blue skies and green leaves. As I have said there are certain prerequisites: a degree of dimness, absolute cleanliness, and quiet so complete one can hear the hum of a mosquito. I love to listen from such a toilet to the sound of softly falling rain, especially if it is a toilet of the Kantō region, with its long, narrow windows at floor level; there one can listen with such a sense of intimacy to the raindrops falling from the eaves and the trees, seeping into the earth as they wash over the base of a stone lantern and freshen the moss about the stepping stones. And the toilet is the perfect place to listen to the chirping of insects or the song of the birds, to view the moon, or to enjoy any of those poignant moments that mark the change of the seasons. Here, I suspect, is where haiku poets over the ages have come by a great many of their ideas. Indeed one could with some justice claim that of all the elements of Japanese architecture, the toilet is the most aesthetic. Our forebears, making poetry of everything in their lives, transformed what by rights should be the most unsanitary room in the house into a place of unsurpassed elegance, replete with fond associations with the beauties of nature.

It’s going out:  remove everything except what is attached to the floor or imbedded in the wall.  Whatever can be washed outside or in the kitchen, do it now and leave it to dry.  We’re talking baskets, floral arrangement, shelves and stuff.  Everything else is set outside the room on the floor and this includes the roll of toilet paper that’s hanging off the side of the vanity.  “Everything else” = towels, rugs (maybe you want to wash them now) toothbrush, tissue box, make-up, hair brush, dryer, blah, blah, blah, get my drift?

Then one day I was sitting on the toilet and I couldn’t get up without holding the wall. Three years before I had run a half-marathon. So I got back into it. I was shocked at the difference just a few years made, and devastated after my first few runs. But I did what I tell my own patients—start with a ridiculously little amount of exercise, just keep at it every other day.

The heads were flushed with sea-water, so they constantly stank! But in rough weather, the water pressure varied as the ship pounded the waves. This often caused a phenomenon known as “Blow-Back!” When this happened, the contents of the toilet exploded violently upwards, all over the walls of the cubical and the floor. And when it happened, it tended to explode in sequence; one toilet followed by the next in line, and so on. God help you if you happened to be on the toilet at the time as there would be no warning until a last minute gurgling sound; then, “BOOM!” A very messy experience; equally messy for those of us who then had to clean it up afterwards!

It was hard to remember what things had been like before Sofia disappeared, before everything started to disintegrate. Frankie’s easy laugh had slipped from her memory. Cass’s grasp on Poppy was thin as a fistful of water. Whatever the four of them had once been was a childish invention, a prayer for a lasting link left unanswered. Cass had expected them to grow up together, to attend each other’s weddings, to hold each other’s hair as they puked into toilets and to raise their kids like some kind of queer commune. They had been that way all her life—closer than sisters. Soul-bonded. No one knew her like her women. No one would ever see into her like them, past the walls of her heart.

If you had lived as a new Christian convert during the rule of the Roman Empire, one of your biggest challenges would have been dealing with the pagan philosophical propaganda that surrounded you. I call it paganosophy. In a Greco-Roman city, most statues depicted partial or total nudity. In the gymnasiums, male athletes worked out naked. In fact, the word gymnasium dates back to the Greek word gymnasion, which literally was a “school for training naked.” Pagan Greeks and Romans insisted there was nothing wrong with showing off a well chiseled body. This is an example of what Paul was speaking of when he wrote, “They worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator” (Rom. 1:25). Roman bathhouses were a popular place for men and women in the city to gather. There were times in history when men and women would occupy the same rooms in the bathhouse. At other times, cities would make decrees prohibiting it. We uploaded a highly viewed YouTube video that we taped in Beit She’an, Israel at the excavated ruins of this Roman city that was destroyed by an earthquake in the ninth century. The city’s ancient public toilets (latrines) had been unearthed. In Roman times there were public latrines in different cities for the benefit of the citizens, since only the wealthy could afford private latrines. The toilet seats, made of stone, were a couple feet long, with one end connected to the wall and the stones resting upon a base with water running beneath for drainage. There was enough space to allow a person to sit between each stone. No archaeological evidence indicated that dividers were used, and as people sat side by side on stones in a public latrine, they discussed business. Deals and contracts were made at the public toilet. Some of the terms we hear today were coined at the Roman toilet. When a person says they have to “do their business,” they’re using a term that originated from men who literally conducted business at the toilet. The signage at the Beit She’an site indicates that men and women shared the same large room, with men on one side of the room and women on the other. Today, we find ourselves returning to trends from the Roman Empire, where men are allowed to use women’s facilities, if they claim to identify as a woman that day. Attacks against women in their own facilities confirm that many of these males are there to take advantage of a ludicrous idea being promoted by the same spirits of the ancient Roman Empire.

Like the upstairs living area, its windows were open to the brutal world beyond—no glass, no shutters—and sheer amethyst curtains fluttered in that unnatural, soft breeze. The large bed was a creamy white-and-ivory concoction, with pillows and blankets and throws for days, made more inviting by the twin golden lamps beside it. An armoire and dressing table occupied a wall, framed by those glass-less windows. Across the room, a chamber with a porcelain sink and toilet lay behind an arched wooden door, but the bath … The bath. Occupying the other half of the bedroom, my bathtub was actually a pool, hanging right off the mountain itself. A pool for soaking or enjoying myself. Its far edge seemed to disappear into nothing, the water flowing silently off the side and into the night beyond. A narrow ledge on the adjacent wall was lined with fat, guttering candles whose glow gilded the dark, glassy surface and wafting tendrils of steam. Open, airy, plush, and … calm. This room was fit for an empress. With the marble floors, silks, velvets, and elegant details, only an empress could have afforded it.

If you use sex whenever you want with whomever you want, you’re treating it like trash, like it means nothing. Imagine a piece of duct tape. It’s got a purpose, it’s designed to stick to something, but if you stick it to the dog and rip it off, then the floor, the wall, the toilet, the neighbor’s pit, after that, it just won’t work right anymore. When you finally find your spouse and try to connect with them, there will be all sorts of crud in the way. It might be a physical STD, or it could be an emotional one that spreads through your relationship and life like an infection.

I really can see positives in this flat. The technicolor mold on the kitchen wall will scrub off, at least in the short term. The filthy mattress can be replaced fairly cheaply. And you could definitely make the argument that mushrooms growing behind the toilet are introducing a fresh, outdoorsy feel to the place.

After the lake everywhere Beth looked there was light. Dad, face bent over her, wore a halo. A tree was on fire with white cockatoos. The dam wall shone like a bride's skirt. The star-covered lake moved inside her. In the car our faces glowed. The sky pressed its bright face to the window. At home our mother noticed the stain on her shorts, and in the toilet even the blood on her underpants shone. 'Do not be afraid,' whispered Nanna at the toilet door. She said the prayer for young girls who are menstruating. 'I'm not afraid,' said Beth.

I want to show you something,” I say. “But I’m afraid you’re going to be angry at me.” She’s suddenly on guard. “Why? What is it?” I turn my wrist over and point to her tattoo on my inner wrist. It’s a bare spot I’d been saving for something special. She leans toward it, and all of her breath rushes from her body. I can feel it across my hand when she exhales. “That’s my tat,” she says. She takes my hand in hers and lifts it toward her face. “Are you angry?” I ask. She looks up at me briefly and then back down at the tattoo. She’s taking in every facet of it. Her hand trembles as she holds tightly to mine. “You changed it.” “I felt like you needed a way out.” I put it on my wrist because I was intrigued by the secrets inside. It’s art, and I appreciate art in all its forms. She swallows. Hard. Then her eyes start to fill with tears. She blinks them back for as long as she can. And then she gets up and runs toward the bathroom. Shit. Now I fucked up. I made her cry. She runs by the waitress, who startles. The waitress starts in my direction, a sway in her hips, but I get up and follow Kit. I stop outside the door to the ladies’ room and press my hand against it. I don’t know what I’m waiting for. She’s in there crying, and I obviously can’t hear her to be sure she’s all right. Fuck it. I’m not leaving her in there upset. I push through the door, and I don’t see any feet in the stalls when I bend over. Where the fuck did she go? I push doors open, but the last one is locked. I stand up on my tiptoes and look over the top. She’s standing there with her forearms pressed against the wall, her head down between her arms, and her back is shaking. She’s crying. I knock on the stall door and say, “Let me in, Kit.” The door doesn’t open. I step back onto my tiptoes and look over. She’s still crying. “Let me in,” I repeat. She doesn’t move, so I walk into the stall next to hers and stand up on the toilet. I rock the partition between the stalls gently. It might hold my weight. There’s only one way to find out. I hoist myself up and over the wall, bringing my legs over the top slowly and carefully, and then I hop down. Before I can reach for her, she’s in my arms, her hands sliding around my neck. She’s still sobbing, and her body shakes against mine. I tilt her face up because I can’t see her lips to tell if she’s saying anything to me or not. I need to apologize. I didn’t expect her to get so upset. I’ll have it covered up with something else if it bothers her this much. My heart twists inside my chest. I really fucked up. “I’m sorry,” I tell her, looking down into her face. Her cheeks are soaked with tears, and she freezes, looking up at me. I can feel her like a heartbeat in my chest. She steps on the toes of my boots and then rocks onto her tiptoes. She pulls my head down with a hand at the back of my neck. Her brown eyes are smoldering, and black shit is running down her cheeks again, but I don’t care. She’s never looked more beautiful to me. I hold her face in my hands and wipe beneath her eyes with my thumbs. Her breath tickles my lips, and she leans even closer. She’s standing on my fucking boots, and I don’t care. She can do whatever it takes to get closer to me. “Why did you do it?” she asks, moving back enough that I can see her lips. I already told her: I thought she needed a way out. All I added to the tattoo was a keyhole right in the center of the guitar. It’s a simple design really. “I don’t know,” I say. I want to explain it to her, but I can’t. Not right now.

By afternoon Jack found her down on her hands and knees scouring the bathroom floor around the toilet and tub. “For the love of God,” he said. “What?” “What the hell are you doing? If you want the bathroom cleaned, why don’t you just tell me? I know how to clean a goddamn bathroom.” “It wasn’t all that dirty, but since I’m in the cleaning mood, I thought I’d whip it into shape.” “David is ready for his nap. Why don’t you join him.” “I don’t feel like a nap. I’m going to vacuum the area rugs.” “No, you’re not,” he said. “I’ll do that if it has to be done right now.” “Okay,” Mel said, smiling. “I’ve been tricked.” “Only by yourself, darling,” she said, whirling away to get the Pledge and Windex. After that was done—and there was a lot of wood and glass and stainless steel to occupy her—she was sweeping off the porch and back steps. Not long after that, she was caught dragging the cradle into the master bedroom. “Melinda!” he shouted, startling her and making her jump. “Jack! Don’t do that!” “Let go of that thing!” He brushed her out of the way and grabbed the cradle. “Where do you want it?” “Right there,” she said. He put it beside the bed. “No,” she said. “Over there, kind of out of the way.” He put it there. “No,” she said. “Against that wall—we’ll put it where we need it when she comes.” He moved it again. “Thank you,” she said. The phone rang. “I’ll get it,” he said. He picked up a pencil and put it in her face. “If you lift anything heavier than this, I’m going to beat you.” Then he turned and left the room. He has cabin fever, she thought. Spending too much time at home with me, making sure I don’t pick up anything heavier than a pencil. He should get out more, and out of my hair. When Jack was done with the phone, she was on her knees in front of the hearth, brushing out the barely used fireplace. “Aw, Jesus Christ,” he said in frustration. “Can that not wait until at least frickin’ winter?” She sat back on her heels. “You are really getting on my last nerve. Don’t you have somewhere you can go?” “No, but we do. Go shower and get beautiful. Paul and Vanessa are back and after they view the prom couple, they’re going to the bar for dinner. We’ll all meet there, look at some pictures.” “Great,” she said. “I’m in the mood for a beer.” “Whatever you want, Melinda,” he said tiredly. “Just stop this frickin’ cleaning.” “You know I’m not going to be able to do much of this after the baby comes, so it’s good to have it all done. And the way I like it.” “You’ve always been good at cleaning. Why couldn’t you just cook?” he asked. “You don’t cook anything.” “You cook.” She smiled. “How many cooks does one house need?” “Just go shower. You have fireplace ash on your nose.” “Pain in the ass,” she said to him, getting clumsily to her feet. “Ditto,” he said. An

In fact, it’s almost big enough to cross time zones. The lab is amidships and takes up nearly half the available space. In front of it and behind it there are weapons stations where two gunners can stand back to back and look out to either side of the vehicle through slit windows like the embrasures in a medieval castle. Each of these stations can be sealed off from the lab by a bulkhead door. Further aft, there’s something like an engine room. Forward, there are crew quarters, with a dozen wall-mounted cot beds and two chemical toilets, the kitchen space, and then the cockpit, which has a pedestal gun of the same calibre as the Humvee’s and about as many controls as a passenger jet. Justineau

Another deputy threw down a clear plastic trash bag with my orange jumpsuit. I reached for the bag and was knocked down to the floor with an overhead right, another shove, and I was inside the 4X6 room. The heavy white door was already closing behind me. The walls here were made of hard white rubber. There was a small shower head towards the back of the tiny cell and a grated hole in the middle of the floor | I assumed that the hold would be my toilet. The cell reeked of anguish.

I wondered if the fire had been out to get me. I wondered if all fire was related, like Dad said all humans were related, if the fire that had burned me that day while I cooked hot dogs was somehow connected to the fire I had flushed down the toilet and the fire burning at the hotel. I didn’t have the answers to those questions, but what I did know was that I lived in a world that that at any moment could erupt into fire. It was the sort of knowledge that kept you on your toes.

The gunman shifted his aim, following Victor’s path as he leaped into the adjacent bathroom, bullets blowing a line of neat holes out of the wall behind him. Ejected brass cases clinked together on the carpet around the assassin’s feet. In the bathroom, Victor came out of his roll into a crouch, letting off a quick shot, firing blind before he’d fully turned around. The bullet whizzed through the open doorway, sending up a puff of plaster as it struck the wall on the other side. The bathroom was no more than six feet by four, a tiled box containing a bath, sink, and toilet. There were no defensible corners or objects behind which to take cover. On fully automatic the MP5K could unload its mag of thirty in just two and a quarter seconds. At this range, and with that volume of fire, the gunman literally couldn’t miss

At the back of the yard, tufted with grass like sparse hair on a balding head, is a weathered gray shed with a slit cut out of the door. Fanny nods toward it. “I’ll wait.” “You don’t have to.” “The longer you’re in there, the longer my fingers get a break.” The shed is drafty, and I can see a sliver of daylight through the slit. A black toilet seat, worn through to wood in some places, is set in the middle of a rough-hewn bench. Strips of newspaper hang on a roll on the wall. I remember the privy behind our cottage in Kinvara, so the smell doesn’t shock me, though the seat is cold. What will it be like out here in a snowstorm? Like this, I suppose, only worse. When I’m finished, I open the door, pulling down my dress. “You’re pitiful thin,” Fanny says. “I’ll bet you’re hungry.” Hongry. She’s right. My stomach feels like a cavern. “A little,” I admit. Fanny’s face is creased and puckered, but her eyes are bright. I can’t tell if she’s seventy or a hundred. She’s wearing a pretty purple flowered dress with a gathered bodice, and I wonder if she made it herself. “Mrs. Byrne don’t give us much for lunch, but it’s prolly more’n you had.” She reaches into the side pocket of her dress and pulls out a small shiny apple. “I always save something for later, case I need it. She locks up the refrigerator between meals.” “No,” I say. “Oh yes she does. Says she don’t want us rooting around in there without her permission. But I usually manage to save something.” She hands me the apple. “I can’t—

No doubt, the toilet must have come alive and regurgitated all over the floor and walls. The putrid water is still trickling from the bowl.

Unfortunately life has a way of sidetracking one’s greatest ambitions. Painters, would-be artists, end up whitewashing walls. Sculptors are forced to design toilets. Writers become critics or publicists. Archaeologists, like myself, can become gravediggers.

When Amana was about three years old, she'd taken her back to her parents' house. One day, while they were sitting face-to-face playing cat's cradle in the room with the grandfather clock, she saw capillaries growing out of their bodies like tiny branches. Slender as gossamer from a spider's web, they spread out along the walls and up to the ceiling, twining themselves around the grandfather clock. Quaking in fear, Marika stood up. Until then, she had never seriously thought about the history of that house. Generations of people whose names she didn't know, whom she'd never cared about, had been born and died there. The sweat of women forced to work like slaves drenched the walls; the pillars were splattered with the semen of masters of this house who had forced themselves on young servants. She smelled the cold sweat of a son who had strangled his bedridden father to get his inheritance. The walls and ceiling that had witnessed these atrocities glared down on her. The misery of married couples trickling down into the pipes connecting the toilet to the sewer. A mother who has chemically transformed her loneliness into ambition chokes her son, squeezing his slender neck between her sweaty thighs. A wife who never lets on what she knows about her husband's affairs mixes her own turds into his miso soup. That handsome arsonist seen loitering around the house might be a former employee, fired for no good reason. The umbilical cord binding the generations of a respectable old family is also a rope around the neck. And she had wanted to cut her ties to all these bloody forebearers, now taking such pleasure in sharing old family secrets... My real family, she thought, are those people I just happened to meet in that coffee shop.

The circle between Madison Avenue and Wall Street was complete; they were inexorably linked, in a relationship developed in ten short years, during which the ad men had created an ambience invaluable to the continuing popularity of stock speculation. The limitless, desirable, and expensive goods coming onto the market—often products of companies quoted on the Stock Exchange—could only be sold by determined advertising campaigns. If those campaigns failed, the market would slump. To maintain his place in consumer society, a man was told he needed a car, radio, icebox, and refrigerator; his wife required a washing machine, automatic furnace, and one of the modish pastel-hued toilets. To complete their domestic bliss they would have the latest in bathrooms: a shrine of stunning magnificence, containing, among other items, “a dental lavatory of vitreous china, twice fired.” To buy it would cost the average American six months’ salary. But paying was no problem; there were the installment plans. It was also part of the advertising philosophy that it was no longer enough to buy a car, radio, or refrigerator. People must have the latest model—junking the old one, even though it was still useful. Failure to do so would cause factories to close from the Atlantic to the Pacific, ending what some newspapers called “the golden era.” To protect it, they told their readers, was the patriotic duty of every American; one way to express that was, “to buy until it hurts.

A strip of white paper was looped around the seat of the toilet bowl to certify that no one had sat there since the strip was placed in position. The toilet paper from the toilet-paper holder in the wall to the left of the toilet seat was soft and very absorbent, and would stick to the anus.

I’ve checked upstairs,” one of the other bounty hunters shouted down after a few minutes. “No sign of Grant Monday. Just a gaggle of kids, and one that was peeing on the walls! Hah!” “Timmy!” Fergus shouted as he scrambled to get up from the table. “I showed you, boy. Do. It. In. The. Toilet!

Envy of others builds an insurmountable wall to our own success.

January 2013 Andy’s Message   Hi Young, I’m home after two weeks in Tasmania. My rowing team was the runner-up at the Lindisfarne annual rowing competition. Since you were so forthright with your OBSS experiences, I’ll reciprocate with a tale of my own from the Philippines.☺               The Canadian GLBT rowing club had organised a fun excursion to Palawan Island back in 1977. This remote island was filled with an abundance of wildlife, forested mountains and beautiful pristine beaches.               It is rated by the National Geographic Traveller magazine as the best island destination in East and South-East Asia and ranked the thirteenth-best island in the world. In those days, this locale was vastly uninhabited, except by a handful of residents who were fishermen or local business owners.               We stayed in a series of huts, built above the ocean on stilts. These did not have shower or toilet facilities; lodgers had to wade through knee-deep waters or swim to shore to do their business. This place was a marvellous retreat for self-discovery and rejuvenation. I was glad I didn’t have to room with my travelling buddies and had a hut to myself.               I had a great time frolicking on the clear aquiline waters where virgin corals and unperturbed sea-life thrived without tourist intrusions. When we travelled into Lungsodng Puerto Princesa (City of Puerto Princesa) for food and a shower, the locals gawked at us - six Caucasian men and two women - as if we had descended from another planet. For a few pesos, a family-run eatery agreed to let us use their outdoor shower facility. A waist-high wooden wall, loosely constructed, separated the bather from a forest at the rear of the house. In the midst of my shower, I noticed a local adolescent peeping from behind a tree in the woods. I pretended not to notice as he watched me lathe and played with himself. I was turned on by this lascivious display of sexual gratification. The further I soaped, the more aroused I became. Through the gaps of the wooden planks, the boy caught glimpses of my erection – like a peep show in a sex shop, I titillated the teenager. His eyes were glued to my every move, so much so that he wasn’t aware that his friend had creeped up from behind. When he felt an extra hand on his throbbing hardness, he let out a yelp of astonishment. Before long, the boys were masturbating each other. They stroked one another without mortification, as if they had done this before, while watching my exhibitionistic performance carefully. This concupiscent carnality excited me tremendously. Unfortunately, my imminent release was punctured by a fellow member hollering for me to vacate the space for his turn, since I’d been showering for quite a while. I finished my performance with an anticlimactic final, leaving the boys to their own devices. But this was not the end of our chance encounter. There is more to ‘cum’ in my next correspondence!               Much love and kisses,               Andy

I see them through the cracks between the walls, their houses not much more than a pile of food and supplies on one side and sleeping mats on the other. I wonder what they do in the winter. Or what they do for a toilet.

Dude, you missed it!” Zeke is wide-eyed, concerned. “The only jobs left by the end were the gross jobs, like scrubbing toilets! Where were you?” “It’s fine,” I say as I carry my tray back to our table near the doors. Shauna is there with her little sister, Lynn, and Lynn’s friend Marlene. When I first saw them there, I wanted to turn around and leave immediately--Marlene is too cheerful for me even on a good day--but Zeke had already seen him, so it was too late. Behind us, Uriah jobs to catch up, his plate loaded with more food than he can possibly pack into his stomach. “I didn’t miss anything--Max came to see me earlier.” As we take our seats at the table, under one of the bright-blue lamps that hang from the wall, I tell him about Max’s offer, careful not to make it sound too impressive. I only just found friends; I don’t want to create jealous tension between us for no reason. When I finish, Shauna leans her face into one of her hands and says to Zeke, “I guess we should have tried harder during initiation, huh?” “Or killed him before he could take his final test.” “Or both.

I shook my head, dazzled by the gleaming lime-green glass tile of the countertop, the matching walls and multicolored abstract painting across from the toilet. The light and color were so radiant, I could almost taste citrus. “Is there a lock on the bedroom door?” I asked.

Time passed fast and I was coming out from the reputed engineering college at last after the same Professor had intervened with the college authority for holding the examination in spite of political troubles, prevailing during seventies in Calcutta. The sprawling complex of the university would suddenly vanish from my view. I would be missing the chirping of the birds in early morning, view of green grass of the football field right in front of our building, badly mauled by the students and pedestrians who used to cut short their journey moving across the field, whistling of steam trains passing parallel to the backside of boundary wall of our building, stentorian voice of our Professors, ever smiling and refreshing faces of the learned Professors every day. I would definitely miss the opportunity of gossiping on a bench by the lake side with other students, not to speak of your girlfriend with whom you would try to be cozy with to keep yourself warm when the chilling breeze, which put roses in girls’ cheeks but made sinuses ache, cut across you in its journey towards the open field during winter. The charm of walking along the lonely streets proscribed for outsiders and bowing occasionally when you meet the Professors of repute, music and band for the generation of ear deafening sound - both symphony and cacophony, on Saturdays and Sundays in the auditorium, rhythmic sound of machines in the workshop, hurly-burly of laughter of my friends, talks, cries at the top of  their lunges in the canteen and sudden departures of all from the canteen on hearing the ding-dong sound of the big bell hung in the administration building indicating the end of the period would no longer be there. The street fighting of two groups of students on flimsy grounds and passionate speeches of the students during debate competition would no longer be audible. Shaking of long thin pine trees violently by the storm flowing across these especially during summer, shouting and gesticulation of students’ union members while moving around the campus for better amenities or administration, getting caught with friends all around with revolvers in hand during the violent Naxalite movement, hiding in the toilet in canteen to avoid beating by police personnel, dropping of mangoes from a mango tree which spread its wings in all directions during the five years we were in the college near our building and running together by us to pick the green/ripe mangoes as fast as possible defying inclement weather and rain etc. were simply irresistible. The list was endless. I was going to miss very much the competition among us regarding number of mangoes we could collect for our few girlfriends whom we wanted to impress! I

After a sweat drenching twenty-minute trek, I’m shoved through the doors of the Complex, to be swallowed into its bowels along with about ten thousand others. The air in here is temperate like a pleasant summer on planet Wreston. A sappy, intended-to-sooth tune floats through the air, yet does nothing to calm my unease. Everything is glossy white and polished gray—white walls, dotted with metal, concrete floors. It smells antiseptic like it’s been scrubbed with toilet cleaner. Ahead, the terminal desks, each holding some sort of monitor, line the walls. They’re manned by men and women in gray uniform, typing on keyboards, and moving their fingers across the monitors, from what I can see through the throng.