WHOOOOOSH!

Flush That Toilet Again!

And again, and again, and again …

Photo by Giorgio Trovato on Unsplash

Imagine that it’s 1969, and you live in a college dormitory with a hundred other guys. The dorm is a simple affair, and you share a room with one other guy, a freshman like yourself. Bathroom facilities are located down the hall, in the middle of the wing. In this case, your room is next door to the bathroom. The hallway walls and floor are essentially concrete, making sounds echo endlessly.

Parties happen often on Friday nights, so imagine you are trying to sleep at eight a.m. on a Saturday morning as you are coming down off the LSD you took at the party last night. Sleep keeps slipping from your mental grasp as you turn restlessly, wishing your mind would become as weary as your body and drift away to unconsciousness.

For no apparent reason, you start imagining the sound of a toilet in the restroom next door being flushed repeatedly. Slowly, it occurs to you that you really are hearing the sound of a toilet flushing — over and over and over.

In your mind, you build a picture of some acid-head coming down off last night’s hit, staring into the toilet as he mechanically pushes the flush handle, entranced by the swirling chaos of the flush. You’re sure he’s saying, “Wow, man!” after every flush.

Dragging your tired body from the bed, you slip on your bathrobe and open the door to the hall. The sound hits you like a pile driver, and you realize it’s not coming from the bathroom. In fact, there’s no one in the bathroom. It’s coming from room 130, at the end of the hall by the exit door. It’s REALLY LOUD!

Pulling your wits together, you walk down the hall and knock loudly on the door, wondering how anyone would even hear your knocking with all that racket.

To your surprise and subsequent shock, Craig Samuel opens the door and says, “Hi Nygel. What’s up, dude?” as the sound hits you full force, almost making your eyes water. You can see, as well as feel, the one-hundred-decibel sound waves filling the room.

“Umm … could you turn that down a little?” you manage to ask.

Amazingly, Craig hears you clearly through the din of the next flush.

“Sure thing,” he says, turning around and hitting the STOP button on the tape deck on top of the three-foot-high speaker cabinet.

The instant silence is immediately visible as your vision clears.

“Thanks, Craig,” you manage to say in a surprisingly civil tone. “How did you do that?”

“Oh, I recorded a flush in the bathroom and made an endless loop of tape on the tape deck here,” Craig says, cranking the volume down on the big guitar amp connected to the speaker. “I call it ‘Essence of West Hall,’ in honor of our shitty dorm.”

“I’m still coming down off last night’s acid trip,” you tell him, “and I could only imagine some freak in the restroom flushing that damn toilet over and over. I had to come see what it was.”

Craig says, “Wow, man.”

“Wow, man,” you answer as you turn and head back down the hall.

“Sorry, Nygel,” Craig says as you walk away. “Didn’t mean to wake you up.”

“It’s okay,” you tell him, pausing in front of your door. “I wasn’t asleep yet.”

“But I will be soon, you thoughtless freak,” you think as you hang up your robe.

Apparently, the whole dorm is empty except for the two of you. What are the odds? And on a Saturday, no less. Weird!

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Brand art by David Todd McCarty