Magic the Toilet Seat

When it came down to writing, it came to the toilet seat. She had no idea why, but images, concepts, lyrical passages flowed in torrents through her.

What magic the toilet seat?

It didn’t happen on the bus—with the furtive judgmental stares. She didn’t flow in the library—where stifled coughs emanated from carrels and sentinel towers of books. She didn’t flow anyplace else at home: not her desk (she regretted choosing the smaller city-sized one) or at the dining table (where all thoughts invariably siphoned back to the weight-related remarks from father—or “what about the kids in …” [your choice of developing 1980’s nation here]).

Every other space was an obstacle; the atmosphere an impediment; the surface too angular. It was only here on the toilet seat from 4:00 to 4:30 every morning, where the dreams unspooled again vividly, each one remembered in the finest detail (see that glint of moonlight on the shards of glass?)—it was on the toilet where imagined conversations wrote themselves, where she was thee hypnopompic amenuensis. Here all creation and worlds unimagined resolved themselves in full dimensions.

Here she was free.

Here she sits still.

What I’m Reading:

“Rise and Shine.
The World is Doomed.”

— The Nib / thenib.com