The No Shit-quick Demon by M Sheridan

 

We all know the situation. Either through excitement to get back to the throng, the need to pretend we were only having a piss or the need to make an unmoveable appointment on time.
Regardless, we all need to have a quick shit now and again.

Most probably we all know how to do a quick shit, and doubtless have all surprised ourselves on occasion with the brevity of intestinal push, but we also know how impossible this can be given enforced and very real time constraints.

How often it is that we deceive ourselves, even convince ourselves, that we can shit quick. Yet we all know the inevitability of the trying-too-hard push motion; and how well we know its inevitable failure. For while we may not have discussed its existence, we are all familiar with the just-wiped-my-arse-and-ready-to-go-but-now-suddenly-need-another-shit demon.

How does it know when to strike?

How infrequently it surfaces when we have time and luxury on our hands. Yes, we all know how it lurks in uncomfortable and dirty toilets waiting to beleaguer ; how when we have no choice but to accept the squat toilet in an Indian train station or a French bar - we expect the demon there, perhaps disguised as just another insect, or manifest in the flickering light bulb, these incarnations we know. But where is it hidden when we need to get back to the table in a plush restaurant with exceptional facilities? Where does it hide in the clean bathrooms of our in-laws? Where in the office toilet does it reside when the packed boardroom is waiting?

I’ll tell you where. It is in our coccyx and our very intestines.
It waits, dormant, untroublesome, until its opportunity presents itself. It bides its time. It communicates with our brains on a special ‘no win - no fee’ basis, and it is a profitable arrangement.

Once alerted, it goes straight to work, its trigger is the final wipe, and it comes alive. And it is omnipotent.

This demon speaks to our bowels like Tarzan to the animals or Jason to the Gods. It weighs heavy on our bowels at the given command - the lock keeper opening the sluice of our arses.

It has the power to keep the wolf from the door but revels in setting the dogs on the intruder. The intruder is time - the time we don’t have.

This demon is well known to us for it bears our name.

This demon is no abstract construct or animate probate. It is no figment or apparition, no particle or segment, no piece or part of us. It is all of us. It is the whole within our hole.
It is us and we are it. We cannot conquer it as we cannot conquer ourselves. It is us.

And it speaks to us.

What fun to keep the boardroom waiting; what will they be saying at the restaurant table knowing we are having a shit? Do we really want to rush back to our in-laws? Clearly, spending time in a filthy toilet is a life experience, it reminds us of our processes.

We hate this demon for its inconvenience and for the way it embarrasses us. It interrupts our busy contemporary lifestyles and forces us to take stock as we take a shit.

We hate this, but we need this.

This demon balances our internal shit table. The more shit we embrace or put in to our lives, the longer it will keep us tethered to the porcelain.

It reminds us that if we don’t have time for a shit, we don’t have time for life.

So praise be upon the no-shit-quick demon.
It arrests our soul and bathes it in reality sunshine.
It speaks to us philosophically about time and patience.
It forces us to embrace self confidence.

Above all, it brings us further solitude with our trousers around our ankles.