Shit Sessions

Inhale. Close your eyes. Don't breathe out while you listen. Don't worry. This too, shall pass.
Now listen.

My clammy hands were, for the first time, not clammy. I kept inhaling sweat, and sweat kept falling into my eyes, making all those eye muscles contract because of the sting. The orbicularis oculi and levator palpabrae. The, there was a rumble deep down in my guts, a rumbling and a bubbling, and I knew, this wasn't because of the heat anymore.

Now, I was in a formation, and it would have hurt my dignity, asking to be pulled out. It would have hurt even more if I didn't ask, so I made a salute, and asked to be pulled out, only, they didn't allow me, on account of the formation about to end soon.

Long story short, more sweat dropped into my eyes.

After the formation, I ran as fast as a man on the verge of shitting could run, and dammit. Someone else beat me to it. I knocked on the door of the men's restroom, but it was locked. The lights inside were on, and the door was locked. Someone beat me to it.

If you'd care to know, CMSHS has only one fucken toilet bowl. The other one was closed, oh, a million years ago, when they found brown soup in there and the brown soup almost flooded the floors, because they couldn't flush it.

I went to my classroom to leave my bag, because I haven't heard of anyone shitting with a backpack. So I went to my room, and I kept dripping sweat on the floor, and I returned to the restroom. I wished I'd seen the last guy who went in. I mean, REALLY!

The toilet bowl, there's no brown soup in the water. The water's clean, but the rest of the bowl isn't. It's coated with shit, and I mean, coated, like, the shit a baby would shit: fibrous, brownish, yellowish, stinking real bad I swallowed spit and my spit tasted like vomit.

On the walls, there were swirls. The kind of art a kid would make with his fingers. You can tell the swirls were made by fingers, because each swirl is a distorted fingerprint. Each distorted fingerprint, it rubbed the butt of mister whoever and wiped some swirly brown painting on the walls.

On the floor, a pair of underwear. Socks. Both of them soggy and coated yellowish, coated brown, coated with shit.

The water container has water that looks like mud, only the smell diffuses and it doesn't smell anything like mud.

The shit's piling up in my guts. If you'd care to know, the utility people, they left the mop in the restroom. No brooms.

When this sorta thing happens to you, close your eyes. Inhale. Do not breathe out. Reach out for the mop and lock the door. With the mop, sweep off the shit, and sit on the cold porcelain crawling with shit and germs.

Tell yourself, this too shall pass.

Because that's what I did.

It hasn't passed yet. The moment's frozen in time. To be sure, this too, shall pass.