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Sometimes you might catch a sight of them. A blur of light or smudged colour. Like a seagull in a storm. Or you might hear them as they pass. A shriek or speeding obscenity.
The toilet people.
That was what we called them. Or that was what I called them at least. Because wherever they started off they always ended up in the same place: the toilet.
Some of them seemed to live virtually their whole lives in the toilet.
“What the hell are they doing in there?” said one of my colleagues one day. It must have been a Tuesday though there’s no way to tell.
“I don’t know,” I replied. “Could be anything.”
It was the not knowing that did it for us in the end. So they took the doors off so we could see.
But the toilet people lived by their own rules. They were as alien to us as rats or beetles and their behaviour just as indecipherable.
“What are you doing in there?” we would say.
“Nothing,” they would reply.
And that was as far as the conversation, if you could call it that, went.
But, by God, we loved to talk and speculate and complain about them.
“If it’s privacy they want, I don’t know why they don’t just go outside,” we would say, and, “Are they eating in there? I think they might be eating in there,” and “It’s bloody disgusting, eating where you shit!”
And we all used to get involved. None of us could even feign disinterest. The toilet people fascinated us, compelled and repelled in equal measure. The tension kept us gripped.
One morning they set off the fire alarm. “One of them was vaping in there, apparently,” a colleague informed me.
“I didn’t know that vapour could set off a smoke alarm,” I said, pointlessly.
“Yeah, it can, apparently.”
Everyone was talking about it for the rest of the day; complaining about the toilet people’s selfishness, and speculating about who exactly it might have been. But no one knew and we never found out.
The next thing was that they installed CCTV in the toilet. Not in the cubicles, we were given to understand, just in the communal area where you were supposed to wash your hands, but where the toilet people, it was supposed, ate their lunches and vaped with such impunity.
There was a live feed that you could watch. We needed to monitor the situation. It was part of our job. I watched it from time to time, because not to do so was frowned upon. You were seen as not being a “team player” if you never watched it, like you were just selfishly leaving the supervision of the toilet people to your colleagues.
But you could never see anyone. You could never catch them doing anything wrong.
The toilet people eluded us at every turn.
And then, one day, they were gone. It all went quiet. The wind died down. The seagulls stopped trying to navigate the storm. It went quiet.
“I wonder what happened to them?” I said.
“They just vanished, apparently,” a colleague replied.
“Here one day; gone the next.”
Suddenly, just like that, our lives were empty.
By God, we missed them.
That was what we called them. Or that was what I called them at least. Because wherever they started off they always ended up in the same place: the toilet.
Some of them seemed to live virtually their whole lives in the toilet.
“What the hell are they doing in there?” said one of my colleagues one day. It must have been a Tuesday though there’s no way to tell.
“I don’t know,” I replied. “Could be anything.”
It was the not knowing that did it for us in the end. So they took the doors off so we could see.
But the toilet people lived by their own rules. They were as alien to us as rats or beetles and their behaviour just as indecipherable.
“What are you doing in there?” we would say.
“Nothing,” they would reply.
And that was as far as the conversation, if you could call it that, went.
But, by God, we loved to talk and speculate and complain about them.
“If it’s privacy they want, I don’t know why they don’t just go outside,” we would say, and, “Are they eating in there? I think they might be eating in there,” and “It’s bloody disgusting, eating where you shit!”
And we all used to get involved. None of us could even feign disinterest. The toilet people fascinated us, compelled and repelled in equal measure. The tension kept us gripped.
One morning they set off the fire alarm. “One of them was vaping in there, apparently,” a colleague informed me.
“I didn’t know that vapour could set off a smoke alarm,” I said, pointlessly.
“Yeah, it can, apparently.”
Everyone was talking about it for the rest of the day; complaining about the toilet people’s selfishness, and speculating about who exactly it might have been. But no one knew and we never found out.
The next thing was that they installed CCTV in the toilet. Not in the cubicles, we were given to understand, just in the communal area where you were supposed to wash your hands, but where the toilet people, it was supposed, ate their lunches and vaped with such impunity.
There was a live feed that you could watch. We needed to monitor the situation. It was part of our job. I watched it from time to time, because not to do so was frowned upon. You were seen as not being a “team player” if you never watched it, like you were just selfishly leaving the supervision of the toilet people to your colleagues.
But you could never see anyone. You could never catch them doing anything wrong.
The toilet people eluded us at every turn.
And then, one day, they were gone. It all went quiet. The wind died down. The seagulls stopped trying to navigate the storm. It went quiet.
“I wonder what happened to them?” I said.
“They just vanished, apparently,” a colleague replied.
“Here one day; gone the next.”
Suddenly, just like that, our lives were empty.
By God, we missed them.
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