Once It Began, There Was No Stopping It
sweating steadily for a week- he used the words “primal urges.”
- “I am a wild beast.”
- covering up their naughty bits with flora
- challenged to a dance battle
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Once it began, there was no stopping it. It no longer mattered that these two were staring at me. Relief flooded my soul as my urine flooded the toilet bowl.
“You can accomplish the same thing by sweating steadily for a week,” the old man advised me. “Course, your way is faster.” He paused for a bit, while I continued to urinate. “Least I assume it is.” He launched into another disorderly tirade, in which, over and over, he used the words “primal urges.” By the time he finished talking, I was done as well. The sound of the toilet flushing seemed apt commentary on what he’d just said.
Before he thought of anything else to rant about, I snatched the note out of his hand.
“Ruffian!” he shouted.
I nodded, and smirked. “I am a wild beast.” I walked out of the bathroom, smoothing the rumpled paper and trying to identify the handwriting. It had many expansive, looping flourishes, and the actual words were in an obscure pidgin that I didn’t think anyone still used.
The message did not relate directly to the photo, at least not in any way I could understand, and it didn’t mention anyone I knew. It described a camping trip that had to be cut short when a bear stole their clothes, leaving them hitchhiking in the nude while covering up their naughty bits with flora (and sometimes fauna) until finally someone stopped. They expected to be offered a lift but instead were challenged to a dance battle.
Nothing I saw in the text would have inspired two Contrarians to share a chuckle about “parrot fever,” until I turned the page 180 degrees. Which raised the question, which one of us was reading it upside-down?
bonus points for using them in order