Diffusion

I've removed my toilet from its fixtures. It lies on its side on the tile floor, a towel draped over part of it, water spilled all the way to the bathroom door.

I'm standing over the hole where the bowl used to be, just looking in.

And I've been thinking about the track suit I dried out, the halibut planted on my person, the horses and the hooks -- and all I'm left with is the pipes. Down there, the pipes are still talking, still not mentioning my name.

But who are they talking to?

I don't drop in just because I want to find out. I don't climb into the hole because I need to know.

No, I step through the floor of my bathroom and into the pipes beneath because there's not much to look for on this side, either. I don't go from here to there like hot water flowing into cold, but like the idle exchange of two luke-warm currents diffusing across a thin membrane. I could have walked out the door just as easily, but maybe the wind was blowing a certain way. Or maybe I'd put in enough work pulling that toilet up that, hey, what else was I going to do, put the thing back and call it a day?

No, I dropped into the pipes.

It was big enough for me to stand, about as wide as outspread arms. I felt the floor boards of my home above me, but as I walked they were soon replaced by concrete, then dirt, and finally rusted iron or lead. A gentle stream flowed slowly beneath my feet.

Floating by were pamphlets and brochures from political campaigns I'd never heard or dreamed of, nightmarish platforms and absurd testimonials. Scrawled on the walls were unreadable messages from who knows when.

It never branched off, just kept going straight and was somehow always dimly lit.

Eventually, I came to a tree where all the pamphlets had gotten stuck, soaked in water. They were bunched up on the branches as if hung there like ornaments. As I yanked on one, though, it stuck fast -- and when it came loose, it did so only with a snap. The campaigns were some kind of fruit grown here in my bathroom pipes.

My shit fertilizes this crap, I thought. It gives me a sense of ownership, at least.

I pee on the tree and then keep walking, a few fruits in hand. I speculate that I can eat these informational packets if the need arises. I feel vindicated by the idea of it: whatever nutrients have been leached from my refuse by this tree will be recouped by my body, diffused backward into my system at last.

I'm not collecting with interest, but it's at least a tiny compensation.

I need a rest, I think, leaning down against the pipe wall here beneath my bathroom -- all of which I'm beginning to believe is somewhere inside of me. As I fall asleep, even though I'm traveling essentially in a straight line in my own house -- and what might even be my own body -- I giggle a bit at the fact that I think I might be getting lost.