Inner Waters

I live in a one-toilet, two-sink, three-bedroom, four-hob, five-seat, six-cupboard, seven-room, eight-shelf, nine-oat, ten-soul* flat. All this is true. Astoundingly accurate, it reflects reality like the most uncanny of mirrors. But only one of these ten rock hard facts is actually significant for the short tale that follows. I got carried away.

It was late at night and I was swerving in and out of sleep in my lonely room. The desire to urinate crept up on me from the inside as it is wont to do, if it came knocking at the door I’d be more than shocked. I tried my utmost to ignore the increasingly intense bladder-borne entreaties. I squirmed reluctantly like a tortured worm. But all to no avail. The appeal was successful. The homeostatic motion was passed and I was obliged under force of nature to rise from my partial slumbers and seek the propinquity of a willing receiver of my liquid excretions. Stumbling down the corridor in the half-light I tried the bathroom door. It was locked. “I’m in here,” said a voice amidst the sloshings of a late night bath. There is only one toilet in my house and it lay behind this locked door.

Returning to my room swiftly I cast my eyes about for an emergency replacement lavatory. Beside my bed there was a pint glass. Snatching it up I dangled my apparatus into the glass and stood in the dark swaying under the weight of my fatigue, eyes shut, listening to the high tinkle of my necessary act. The glass became warm in my hand. I opened my eyes and squinted through the darkness at the murky fluid. Placing it on my bedside table I made to clamber back into bed. I was struck with the incorrigible presentiment of waking the next morning, fresh as a lily, to this glass of noisome urea. The only available sink was in the kitchen but this was imprudent on sanitary grounds and involved the weary traversal of too many stairs for my liking.

The window it was then. I took a quick look to see if there lurked any itinerants but, considering the time and temperature, was unsurprised to observe a completely empty street. In a few swift movements I opened the window and flicked the piss out of the glass onto the rainy street below. It struck me that there was not a soul about to watch the extraordinary stream that rose from the paving stones. I stood for a moment and appreciated the glorious steam of my own creation. Then, shutting the window, I leaped back into bed.

*No it is not quite as you guessed: there are more than five shoes in the house. I meant soul as in mind, consciousness, psyche, sentience, what have you… 'How can there be ten souls in a three bedroom house?' I hear you ask. Well there is Me, Andy, Tess, Nick (Tess’ boyfriend), two gerbils, two hamsters and two rats (all belonging to Tess). No word of a lie.