Member-only story
The Toilet
A portrait of a man
“It’s so hard to stay alive now,” said the old man to himself in his kitchen.
Actually, he wasn’t that old, but he certainly felt old. In earth years he was only 59. If he were to die tomorrow, his friends would say, “He died so young.” He would disagree with them, of course, sitting up in his coffin at the wake, saying, “Five is young. Thirty is young. Anything after thirty is a blessing in my book. Did you know that for most of human history, you were lucky to live past 40? Most people died of a horrible disease, or in battle. No, 59 is not young.”
Sipping his coffee at his kitchen table, he noticed he was slouching and immediately sat up straight, just as his mother told him to do all those years ago. He wondered how this slouch had come about. When did it start?
Before he could find an answer, a pain in his tooth took his attention away. It was a sudden sharp pain just under the gum line. It wasn’t there yesterday and it wasn’t there the day before. In fact, the last time he felt a sharp stabbing pain like this in his tooth was five or six years ago. At the time, he thought it would develop into a cavity, but nothing came of it. Worried, he wondered why it had come back now. He’d better go to the dentist.
He burped. An odor of oregano oil pervaded the space around his nose. This…
