The Last Toilet
My first day on the job I found a stone on the floor. It wasn’t just any stone. It was a really smooth stone, small but heavy in the palm of the hand, great for skipping.
“I know a river stone when I see one,” I was trying to put it at ease, but apparently my strategy backfired. In the corner, under the overhang of the lockers, inconspicuous, the stone didn’t respond.
I tried again. “You’re almost as out of place as I am.” I raised my voice to make sure, extra sure, that it could hear me. Still nothing.
“The cold shoulder, eh?” I set the mop against the wall and squatted down to have a closer look. A fine stone indeed. Not a sharp edge on it.
Moving slow, so as not to scare it, I picked it up, put it in my hand, brought it over to the sink, and ran it under cold water for a few minutes. I watched as it came to life, as it opened its eyes, restored to its rightful hue, an underwater color, a deep-down color, somewhere halfway between rusted iron and moss green.
Over the sink, high up, there is a ledge made of drywall. The overhead lights are mounted to it. I figured it was as good a spot as any. “It’s not river, but at least you’ll be safe here.” I reached up and set the stone upon the ledge, all the way against the wall, a safe nook, out of harm’s way.
Before leaving, I turned and addressed it one last time. “We’ll have to see who lasts longer in this place, you or I!”
Every shift, upon clocking in, I went to the bathroom on the main floor, the most heavily trafficked, to check on it, and was always slightly relieved to confirm that it had made it another day.
At the end of my shift, past midnight, when the bathrooms were all clean, I would take it down from the ledge, from its hiding place, there in plain sight, and hold it under the running water, as cold as I could stand. Only upon feeling its weight in the palm of my head, only upon watching it come to life, restored to its rightfully hue, I knew that my shift was over, that I had been restored.
Now that so much time had passed, now that the colors have faded, our original hues, I no longer check on the river stone. I no longer have to. Something has changed. I realize now that I was wrong to think that one of us would outlast the other. I understand now that we are in it together. We have both stayed at our posts. We have both held our ground. And, when it comes time, we will go down together.
When I quit, when I clean my last toilet, when I hang my beige coveralls on the hook in the employee locker room for the last time, on that great day, trumpets blaring, confetti in my hair, I’m taking the river stone with me.
Stowed in my pocket, I will take it, my cherished cargo, my co-conspirator, out the front door, across town, toward the port, all the way down to the riverfront. Hidden in the reeds, my rowboat will be waiting for us. I will push off from shore and row out to the place where the current quickens and speeds us away, far away, seabound.
Somewhere along the way, when the timing is right, when the water is deepest, I will remove the stone from my pocket and deposit it into the dark waters. I will watch the bubbles rise to the surface as it sinks, visible at first, growing smaller, until nothing remains but silence. Restored to our rightful hues, we will speed toward our final destinations.
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