Sentient Toilet

If your toilet was sentient...

Would you rather your toilet get excited to eat your shit, or hate you with an undying passion for it.

I vote for the tired impatience of a bureaucrat who is too broken by the system to even resent it.

"Oh, hey Josh... thought I'd at least get another few hours. Burritos, Josh? Again this week? It's not good for you, Josh, and it's not good for me either. Truth be told, little's good for me these days... on with the show, I guess. Do your worst."

While you're doing your business, there's no gasping of disgust or even exclamations of protest... just a deep, soul-flattening sigh when you finally pull the flush lever. It's clammy to the touch, now—it wasn't that way when you sat down—but you know that Toilette would never complain. This is a being for whom hope holds a similar place in mind as does Santa Clause or the Tooth Fairy... comforting fables for children, but things that have no true place in the worlds of humankind. This cruel world can bear no magic, no wonder, no whimsy... only porcelain, excrement, wadded paper, responsibility.

You spritz a small puff of air freshener, but Toilette neither thanks you nor complains... he stares at you with his one porcelain eye, the great white bowl your bowels profaned, and he does so unblinkingly... no judgment, no warmth, just a spirit crushed a tiny bit flatter each time you sit down on it.

You make to leave.

"The hands, Joshua... the hands. We've been over this."

"Right," you say, embarrassed by the chastisement. You wash them idly and try to strike up conversation. "Imagine if, while washing my hands, the sink started to moan and scream 'soap me harder daddy' right until a spurt of hot water splashed on my face. That'd be pretty wild, right?" you ask, laughing and shaking your head. You turn to Toilette to gauge his reaction, and the warm smile you wear fades to lukewarm like the water pooling at the bottom of the sink... his seat isn't rocking with laughter, nor is his water even so much as rippling.

"Same time Tomorrow, Josh?" he says, no acknowledgement of your attempt at levity. It was immature, anyways, and now you're left feeling just a little bit awkward. Fortunately, the toilet speaks again, breaking the moment's spell: "I'll be here, Josh... always here, nothing else."

"Same time tomorrow," you say, nodding and drying your hands. "Same time tomorrow."

And then you leave him to the stillness of the apartment dark. In such meditative silences, even a fixture might find its mind liable to wander... but Toilette, ever the realist, keeps his imagination on a very short leash.

Comments • 0

Loading comments...