Evil Restroom

Evil Restroom

Todd Camnitz

1/6/2013

Not quite drunk. His friends say he is, but he isn’t, not really. Just had a little. Feels wobbly, sure, but drunk? Nope. “Go head, guys,” he says. “I’ll catch up at the bar.” Really has to go. Doesn’t want to wait.

He teeters into a park’s public restroom, and nearly promotes his innards to outards, right there on the floor. Had more than he thought. But not drunk. Buzzed. Yeah. That’s the word. That’s what his ex, Sarah, always said, trying to placate him the next morning. “It was a great party! But don’t worry, I only got buzzed,” she’d say, while holding her head and popping hangover pills. Smooth the truth. Buzzed right into some other guy’s lap, no doubt.

When your girlfriend cheats on you, would you prefer for her to be drunk, or merely buzzed?

Ah, forget it. She was a liar, anyway.

Of course, there was that one time, when Sarah was out of town. That small get-together, and that little brunette; what was her name? Ashley? April? Something with A. Anomaly. Anemone. An enemy. Whatever. That made things even. Sort of. It was just a kiss; well, a few kisses, and a hand running up…hold that thought, the world is spinning…

On his knees, he barfs into a trash bin near the door. Waste of decent seafood. The floor is cold and hard and painful. He pulls the can closer. It’s heavier than it looks. The metal bottom screeches like a banshee against the concrete. A trashcan banshee. Trashcanshee. He rests his arms on the rim and the can tilts with his weight, but doesn’t fall.

Until very recently, the can was propping open the bathroom door. Freed from the hindrance, the door slams closed. The resulting breeze ruffles his hair.      

He retches once more, mostly hitting the wastebasket. Definitely not drunk now. He feels better, after a few breaths. Gets up, hands on his knees. He pulls eight paper towels—all at once—from the metal dispenser near the sink. The bathroom offers other options. There is, in addition to the dispenser on the wall, an automatic air dryer. Can’t clean his face with that. He wipes his mouth. Forgets the bits of crab still on the floor. Needs to pee.

  Out one end, then out the other. Dried urine rims the toilet bowl. Either one person had atrocious aim, or many people had not-quite-perfect aim. Regardless, there is one certainty: no one will wipe it off. Not in a public restroom. He’s not going to do it, either. People are such pigs, he thinks. He shakes a few times, clearing the last drops. All of them land on the rim.

He stumbles from the stall without flushing. One shoe nearly steps in a puddle against the back wall. A puddle from nowhere. It’s a mystery how the water (or whatever it is) got there. No drain, no window, no rivulets down the wall, no miniature creeks from under the stalls. It’s just a secluded puddle. His very own Walden Pond, on the floor in the public restroom.

A fluorescent fixture lines the top of the mirror behind the sink. It supplies unapologetically meager light, prone to epileptic fits of flickering. The soap is empty. He hits the knob on the tap (a timed-release), and a niggardly trickle falls from the faucet. The water lasts for three seconds. He swears. Pounds the knob again. Resorts to holding it down with one hand while washing the other, then switching hands. When he presses the button on the hand dryer, nothing happens, so he dries himself with another paper towel.

He turns and strides to the exit. Yanks on the vertical door handle. It detaches from the green, metal door with a loud scrunch, the noise echoing around the empty bathroom.

The light flickers.

The door stays shut. Didn’t move an inch.

He can see two, rough, metal circles where the handle had been welded to the door. In a disoriented haze, he stares at the piece of aluminum in his hand. Glances around, briefly. Still no windows. There’s a sheet of paper taped at eye-level on the back of the door. A maintenance log, apparently. If he looked at it closely, he’d see that different names appear on each line, each followed by a date. There are thirteen names. Thick, red lines skewer nine of the names and dates, left to right. Only four names have no line. The most recent date reads March 17, 2007. Five years ago. He eyes scan the page without seeing, without comprehension.

Is the puddle getting bigger?

He throws the handle into the trashcan, and it clangs against the side. When the noise fades away, the light-fixture’s faint buzzing is all he can hear. In the trash, the handle sits in a pool of…well…yeah.

He imagines a doctor, looking in the wastebasket: “I see why you threw up. Appears you tried to eat this door handle.”

He reaches to open the door some other way, but there is no other way. A dense ball of apprehension settles in his gut.

Don’t worry. He’ll get the door open.

He can’t.

A thought forms in his mind. He won’t acknowledge it, not yet. The thought stays, though, hovering. Tapping on his consciousness. Excuse me. Please, excuse me. Think me.

He’ll get it open.

Still doesn’t open.

He thinks the thought.

I’m trapped.

He’s trapped in a public restroom at two in the morning, and by now his friends will have reached the bar. The thought comes close to amusing him. Certainly this would be funny if it were happening to someone else.  

 Trapped? Really? Can’t be. Can’t actually be trapped. Not yet panicked, but more than a little perturbed, he gets down on the floor and tries to wedge his fingers under the door. It’s useless. Not enough space. He knew it would be useless before he tried. He tries grasping the tiny, metal ridges the handle left when it detached, but he can’t get a good grip. When his hand slips, the metal slices his skin. He sucks his fingertip, a couple drops of blood spattering the floor.

The door’s edges are nearly flush with the wall; there’s even less space than at the bottom. The thinnest seam.

His keys. Yes, the keys, they will help. They’ll fit between the wall and the door. He clutches them. Grips them so tightly, they leave mirror-image dimples in his skin, a pattern for opening pressed into his palm.

He manages to force a key between the wall and the left side of the door. He’ll pull, with his forefinger through the key ring, and the friction will force the door open, just enough. Then, he’ll be able to get a better grip and swing it the rest of the way. He pulls and pulls. Nothing. The key sticks for a moment, then pops out of the seam each time, the door having moved not at all. The key leaves little streaks of silver where it scratches the paint.

He kicks and pounds on the door with his fist. He yells. In the bathroom, the noise from his assault is deafening. No one comes. The door stays shut. He paces from one end of the bathroom to the other. Passes the sinks, a single urinal, two regular stalls, and finally, the handicapped stall, where he recently relieved himself. Apart from the door, there is no way to exit the restroom. There is a circular vent in the ceiling, roughly the width of his hand.  

He climbs on top of the toilet in the handicapped stall, aims he face at the vent, and yells some more. As he strains to be heard, he loses his balance and slips. One foot goes in the toilet bowl as he crashes to the cement, bruising his shin and hitting his head against the wall in the process.

Violent swearing fills the restroom. He’s laying on his back, holding his leg up to his chest, hands on his shin. Something cold and wet touches the back of his head. He jerks up. His hair is sopping wet. The puddle is spreading. He scrambles to his feet, backing away.

The liquid is dark, like molasses, and the surface is smoother than the jerk Sarah hooked up with. The edge of the puddle creeps toward him, as quietly disconcerting as an oil spill. The water in his hair is uncomfortably cold. He yanks on the roll of toilet paper to dry himself.

For no reason he can explain, the last thing he wants to do is step in the puddle. To avoid this, he crawls under the divider and into the adjoining stall. The puddle has yet to spread that far, and he makes a limping beeline for the exit. Toilet water and urine squelches in one of his shoes. With another paper towel, he gingerly plucks the aluminum handle from the trashcan. Fumbling with it, he tries to put it back where it used to be, as if by touching the sections of metal to each other, they’ll remember their old closeness and re-attach. This accomplishes nothing, and he flings the handle across the restroom with a frustrated shout.

The handle careens off the back wall and splashes into the dark water. It’s as though the puddle was just waiting to be disturbed. A dam has broken. The first ripple grows into an entirely unreasonable amount of water—a miniature tsunami—rolling violently into all four walls. It covers the floors, and the backsplash washes against his knees. His legs prickle with the chill, and he can’t see his shoes beneath the water’s surface. The water rises.

  If only he was a swimmer, like Sarah. They had understood each other so well. What happened? A great shiver runs through his body, making his teeth clack together. He misses her smile.

Why is he thinking of her? Why now?

The water level is rising even faster, and he’s hopping from one foot to the other, moving to the sinks. He clambers onto the sink nearest the first stall, and hangs onto the top of the stall divider for stability. The “puddle” reaches the sink’s rim and fills it with icy darkness.

The ceiling is too low for him to straighten up while standing in the sink, so he hunches over, watching the water once again envelop his legs.

Maybe he should call her. She’s probably asleep, but he could leave a message. He could apologize for screaming at her. For saying those awful things. He didn’t mean them. He’d been even colder to her than the water in the puddle. It reaches his waist, and the shock of it causes part of his plumbing to crawl up inside his abdomen. “The scared turtle effect,” one of his friends always called it.

How would the message go? “Sarah, I don’t know what’s about to happen to me, but I want to tell you that I … I …” Am sorry? Love you? Miss you? Forgive you? No, this is a terrible idea. He doesn’t know how he feels. The last five words he threw at her replay themselves in his mind. “I hate you. Get out!” He wishes they could have a second chance.

The water level is rising so fast that it’s nearly at his chin before he realizes he can’t leave her a message anyway; his phone is in his back pants-pocket. Submerged. His wallet is similarly inundated, and he has the wild thought that he’ll have to iron his bills if he survives. He’s rapidly running out of ceiling.

At that moment, the thought finally hits him. He could have called his friends. How could he be so stupid? Someone could have let him out. He could have called 911. He could have called anyone. In a frantic burst of possibility, he fishes the phone from his pocket. When he tries to press a button, it’s as he fears: dead. He drops it and it sinks out of sight, along with his hopes.

He claws his way to the vent and smooshes his face as close to the opening as he can. His hands and feet are completely numb, and soon there will be nothing left to breathe. He wonders if water is leaking out the cracks around the door. The chill is paralyzing him.

The restroom light flickers and dies. There’s now no difference between air and water, save that he can’t breathe them both. In complete blackness, he feels the water cover his face entirely. He holds his breath for as long as he can, afraid of what’s coming next. He always wanted to die doing something epic—to go out in a blaze of glory. Fate is cruel.

Try as he does to resist, eventually he opens his mouth.

Cold and fear and regret fill him. Sarah’s face burns in his mind, his last thought before consciousness flees.

***

He wakes, stiff and wet, to find his friend, Michael, standing over him. In his hand he can feel the familiar weight and shape of his cellphone. He is lying on his back, near the open door of the restroom. The trashcan is back, propping it open.

“Dude, what the hell happened? You fall in the toilet?”

He doesn’t know.

“You’re all wet…why are you on the floor?”

He doesn’t try to explain. Michael wouldn’t believe. He coughs. Mumbles something about Sarah.
“Your ex? She’s a bitch. Really need to get over her, man.” Michael helps him to his feet. “You look wrecked.“
He’s fine. Really.
“Your ass is soaked.”

He’ll dry. Nothing serious. Just give him a second.

Michael’s expression is skeptical, but he doesn’t argue. His friend walks out of the restroom for some water at the fountain.

“Really had to push to get the door open,” Michael calls, from around the corner.

No kidding. He gives a noncommittal grunt.

Slowly, he walks to the back of the restroom. Catches a glimpse of something dark receding into the corner between the floor and wall. He crouches to run his hand over the spot. Completely dry. He notices a faded scar on the tip of his finger, as if from a decade-old wound. He returns to the door, takes a breath, and checks behind. The handle is attached. Gives it a small wiggle. Thoroughly solid. He doesn’t look closely at the paper. If he did, he’d see his name and today’s date. There’s no red line.  

He looks at his phone. The screen lights up. A new message. It’s from Sarah. Five words. “Miss you. Want to talk?” Yeah, he thinks. Yeah, I do. He finally knows what he wants to say. As he and Michael leave, a man appears, making for the men’s room. He stops the stranger, and nods toward the building. “You sure you need to go?”

    

Which side?

I heard a piece of wisdom. Can't remember where I heard it. It went something like this:

One way to discern a man's intelligence is by observing which side of his face he shaves first.

I have lain awake for many nights, pondering this. What could be the connection between my intelligence, and the side of my face I choose to shave first? I am still stymied as I write.

The very fact that I don't see a connection, I think, clearly marks me as a man of lesser intelligence. Were only I more intelligent, I would understand why it matters.

I stand before my mirror, shaving, and think to myself, but I am going to shave my whole face.

No matter where I begin, the end result is the same: I am clean shaven.

Perhaps the statement implies a hypothetical interruption. Perhaps an intelligent man, knowing that shaving a couple days worth of stubble can take some time, would begin shaving the side of his face that absolutely must be shaved, just in case he is interrupted and must run off, mid shave.

But what side would this be? The left side? It seems to me that unless the man in question is a magazine model (or rough equivalent), and one who only has pictures taken of his left side at that, anybody talking to him face-on would think he looked ridiculous. I doubt that walking around in such a state could do anything to bolster estimations of his intelligence.  

I wondered if perhaps the saying referred to different parts of the face, drawing an implied distinction between areas: neck, chin, cheeks, and upper lip. This makes some sense. An intelligent man (or a vain one) would know the areas of his face that look the best if he is to be only partially enstubbled. For example, I know that my moustache area, of all the places I grow facial hair, looks terrible. Thus, I always shave my upper lip first. So, if I am called away early, I can rest assured that I stride from my bathroom with a visually pleasing partial shave.

Sadly, I am forced to throw out this hypothesis, because the saying clearly states "side" of the face, and not "part" of the face.

In my consternation, I've also pondered the relevancy of right- and left-handedness, electric and straight razors, the presence of shaving cream, the time of day, and whether the man in question is single or married. None of these avenues have supplied a reasonable answer. So, I remain an unintelligent man, resigned to choosing randomly the side of my face to shave first, in the hope that I might accidentally stumble upon the correct answer, and greater intelligence. Today, hmm, let's see. I think I'll start with...the right side. Hey! Wait a sec...

Ash-Marked

What follows is the opening for a story I came up with after reading The Eye of the World. I am doing something a little different with this one, and not trying to plan anything. I'll just write and see what happens to the characters. The fundamental idea is that in many fantasy stories, the characters do remarkably stupid crap all the time, and none of their companions ever say "Maybe we shouldn't pull this random lever in the basement of the haunted castle," for example. I'm hoping this will turn into a fantasy adventure where the characters already have a working knowledge of how fantasy adventures tend to work out. 

Eltin and Garna faced the entryway to Ashmark Temple. The evening sun was slipping behind the valley’s high peaks, leaving the structure half in shadow. Closing rays slanted through the air’s meandering Puffcat seeds, causing the two friends to squint up at the temple through the glare. Soon the sun would dip beneath the mountains completely, leaving this part of the valley in an early dusk.

Eltin’s favorite parts of the valley were where he could stand and watch the evening shadows racing towards him across the grass. In the ending minutes of a day in late summer, he could feel the glowing air expand and mix to create a kind of unfathomable wistfulness. It was the same feeling Eltin got when he admired one of Elder Penti’s impossibly ornate card houses, or a speckled Robin’s egg in the spring; it was the experience of something beautiful, deep, fragile, and fleeting.

Garna’s favorite parts of the valley were the parts he wasn’t supposed to enter, which was why he and Eltin were standing in front of Ashmark. Eltin was gazing serenely at the last visible speck of sun disappearing behind Moth Peak, and Garna was gazing at Ashmark’s open archway with the anticipation of a child come gift time on New Year’s eve.  

Winding vines twisted themselves through imperceptible fissures in the grey blocks of the temple’s walls, which were broken in places by centuries of weather and the persistent pressure of thousands of tiny roots. Large piles of dead leaves lay trapped where the wind had pushed them, piled into mounds where the temple’s walls came together in awkward alcoves.

The temple had a distinctly dusty feel, and all of this, the leaves, the broken stones, the ivy, gave the impression that no one had tended to the temple in centuries. Eltin supposed that this was probably the case, if his village’s stories held any truth. Two gigantic, stone griffins stood on their hind legs to either side of the opening. The text on the statue’s bases had long since worn away, but Eltin felt that the griffins’ poses could only be meant as a warning.

            Actually, Eltin thought, “temple” really isn’t the right word at all. Temples were supposed to be small and modest. This was more of a cross between a mine, a sanctuary, and a palace. Eltin could see the steps at the entryway disappearing below ground and into a dim twilight that hid most of the inside from view. There were no windows at any point along the walls, and the walls themselves ended only once they ran into the cliff-face behind.

            “Right,” Garna said, his voice displacing the stillness, “we’re here, now in we go!”

            Eltin crossed his arms against the sudden chill in the wind. Fall was coming. He shuffled from foot to foot. “Garna, I thought we agreed. Just a look, then we’d leave.“

            Garna was indignant, which was predictable. “Not again, Eltin. I’ve already seen the outside. Mara and I walked around the walls. But she wouldn’t go in either. Don’t tell me you’re a little scaredy girl.” Garna gave Eltin’s shoulder a tiny shove.

            “Mara’d kick your ass for that,” said Eltin, accustomed to his friend’s provocations. When he and Garna were younger, it took only the span of a jape for Eltin to fall on him, punching and biting and kicking. The two would roll around, throwing up dust and tearing their clothes, only stopping once an elder doused them with a bucket of water. But friendships between boys can be odd things, and all their little brawls only brought them closer. Now, both being fifteen, they knew that they could cause serious damage with that sort of thing. At least, Eltin knew it. He wasn’t sure if Garna cared. Eltin gave him a rough shove back, and said, “She wouldn’t go alone with a fifteen-year-old boy into a dark, secluded place? Gee, I wonder why. You want her father to tan you?”

            Garna rolled his eyes, and made a gesture that indicated what he thought Mara’s father could go do. “She was scared, Eltin. She said so.”

            “You know, in this case, I don’t think there’s much of a difference between fear and wisdom,” Eltin replied, hands on his hips.

            Garna just shook his head. “You sound like a textbook. Like always. An old texbook.” Garna turned and walked a few paces towards the Temple’s archway, stopping next to one of the griffins. He put a hand on one of its outstretched claws.

            “Just look how marvelous this is!” Garna said. “And it’s just the entrance. Imagine what’s inside!”

            “Yeah. I’m so excited. Some crumbling, wooden furniture, a bunch of empty, dark, stone rooms, and a few altars. Plus, oh, I don’t know, traps, cursed relics, and angry spirits from long-dead monks. The elders tell everyone to stay out of Ashmark for a reason.”

            “Yeah. They say it’s sacred, and we shouldn’t piss off the Gods. I think Elder Penti hides his collection of naked drawings in there, and he’s just afraid someone will find them.”

            “Ok, Garna, seriously. We have no torches, no map of the place, and the warnings of our entire village that it’s off-limits.”

            Garna threw his hands in the air. “Are you kidding me? I just want to see what’s at the bottom of the stairs. That’s not gonna hurt anyone. Besides, I promised Mara that I’d bring her something.”

            “Did she even say wanted you to do that?” Eltin asked, exasperated.

            “Well, no, but I could tell she liked the idea.”

            “I bet what she actually said was,” Eltin cleared his throat and pitched his voice slightly higher in imitation, “Garna, stop being such a bloody fool.”

            “No, her actual words were ‘bloody show-off’,” Garna corrected, fingering the point of a griffin’s claw. “It’s not what she said, though, but how she said it.”

            “How did she say it?”

            “You know that cute little half smile thing she does when she’s teasing you, and her eyes kind of light up like they’re filled with fairy dust, and she plays with the seam on the side of her dress, and—”

            “You don’t know the first thing about girls,” said Eltin, cutting him off and shaking his head.

            “Oh, like you do,” returned Garna.

            “I know she wouldn’t want you to risk your life doing something stupid and dangerous, just to impress her.”

            Garna laughed at his friend. “That’s where you’re wrong, Eltin. That’s precisely what she wants. Trust me.” With that, Garna turned on his heel and walked straight under the temple’s arch, and started descending the steps.

            Eltin cursed under his breath and took a few steps back towards the village, then stopped and took a few steps towards the temple, not wanting to abandon his friend, stopped again, and rocked back and forth on his feet, trying to decide what to do. Finally he broke into a slow run after Garna, calling out, “Fine, but just to the bottom of the steps. Then I’m turning around.”

            He found Garna waiting for him fifteen steps down, leaning against the wall. Even at this short distance, little of the failing evening’s light reached them. Despite the detritus and verdigris that littered the ground and covered the walls outside Ashmark, not even so much as a single leaf could be seen on the staircase. In fact, the steps themselves seemed as though they were cut from the mountain only yesterday, and by people whose apparent skill made the work of the village’s best rock smiths seem the result of a child’s wild flailing.

            Each step was a perfect replica of the last, and the rock’s surface was as flat and smooth as the blade of a knife. The walls were carved with equal skill, and though his eyes couldn’t see well enough to be certain, Eltin could feel not even the smallest fissure in them. He thought this more than a little odd, given the proliferation of ivy only just outside.

              The two friends descended another twenty steps, before stopping to let their eyes adjust. Once they could see, Eltin realized that the steps ended on a small landing, a few hundred feet below, but he couldn’t discern what happened beyond.

            “That’s a long way down...” Eltin began.

            “The end of the steps. That’s what we said.”

            “That’s what you said.”

            “That’s what I still say.”

            “I think we should go back. This doesn’t feel right.”

            “You always say that.”

            “Garna, this is how children in stories always get in trouble! They go somewhere stupid they’re not supposed to, something goes wrong, and they wind up almost dying, or getting horribly maimed, or locked into some ridiculous adventure that neither of them wanted in the first place. You know that epic about Roderick and Medina? How did the tale start? With the two of them entering a forbidden temple, and finding an enchanted sword. If they’d just stayed home, Medina wouldn’t have lost her hand, and Roderick wouldn’t have had to watch his parents tortured and killed.” The volume of Eltin’s voice steadily rose as he spoke, and when he’d finished, the word “killed” echoed up and down the staircase.

            Garna just put his hand on Eltin’s shoulder, looked him square in the eyes, and said, “Stop being so dramatic. That’s just a story. That kind of stuff doesn’t happen to actual people. Besides, you left out the part about Medina and Roderick falling in love, and Roderick becoming a wise and powerful king.”

            “But they were actual people. That’s my point.”

            “Allegedly.”

            “Allegedly what, exactly?” asked Eltin.

            “It’s an old fable, Eltin! You really think all that stuff actually happened? What is it you’re always saying?” Garna’s voice took on the tone he used when imitating one of his teachers. “Don’t listen to old fables too closely. Years of telling and re-telling have introduced exaggeration and outright falsehood.” His voice returned to normal. “There. How was that?”

            “Yes, but,” Eltin stopped suddenly, and looked around him. “Wait, look around. We can still see.”

            Garna shrugged. “The light from outside, obviously.”

            “No. Look back.”

            Garna peered back up the steps at the faint rectangular outline of the entryway. The opening stood out, darker than the walls of the staircase. It was night.