Jon Emile Randles

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Jon Emile Randles Short stories

It was cold man

It was cold man. A few years ago now, the cold snapped us awake from our summer dreams and the warmth was banished from our warehouse flat, and it was cold.

It was Wellington, New Zealand; bottom of the North Island and home to the dreaded Southerly that blew from Antarctica across the Southern Alps and into my bedroom. The warehouse was a cool place to live in summer; an open plan, it was bright, breezy, and sweet as. I come from a warm climate so was stoked with the greenhouse warmth that peeled in through the huge cracked windows twelve hours a day. But that was then.

I started imagining fires.

Big red golden flames licking my frozen skin and thawing my frozen bones. I remember the thoughts would feel so real and warm until the winter wind would shake me awake. I would lie freezing in my bed, dying for an open fire (just a small one) to thaw my frozen bones.

These thoughts became continuous and began to tap me on the shoulder...

One such freezing evening I was in bed, quite stoned, thermaled up but still shivering, when I heard my flatmate in the room next to mine, so, half jokingly, I yelled at her to come and build me a fire in my room. She said sure, even more jokingly, came in and began to build a pyre at the foot of my bed.

Looking back, Patricia must have been in the girl guides; she rolled up newspaper at the bottom and then covered with a tee-pee of twigs, and adding bigger and bigger pieces of wood (we lived with Rhys, artist extraordinaire and collector of driftwood). Finally she added half a bale of hay (don't ask).

It was the hay that would prove to be the problem...

I, stoned as a motherfuck, watching, could only think - light it-light it-light it-light it. I dared her to light it. I'm not 100% sure but may have even double-dog-dared her. She, still joking, pretended to strike a match.

By now my eyes were rolled back and I was living the dream of a roasting fire warming my bedroom.

My own fire. My own warm fire. Me. Mine. Fire.

Jumping out of bed, I took the matches from her and greedily struck the box, almost tasting the splutter as the sulphur ignited in my fingertips. I touched the newspaper, and as the flames gently licked then danced their way towards the twigs, I was perhaps the happiest guy in the world. I basked in the warmth and the fulfilment of a fantasy. I was everywhere and nowhere. I understood. I was One. I was at peace. The thought gently tapping at my shoulder was no more. I was whole: complete.

I came back to reality at the same time as the hay bale caught fire...

My little friend became an 8-foot monster, and instead of licking my skin began to gnash at the ceiling. Patricia began to panic, and I, more of a dreamer than of a practical nature, also panicked.

As we panicked, I grabbed my still damp bath towel and, like Frankenstein trying to destroy my own creation, began to beat at the flames that seemed to enjoy my living space. Like Frankenstein, I was defeated and the flames ate my towel.

Still stoned, and with the ability to use humour to escape potentially dangerous situations, I cackled wildly. That didn't help. When the flames began to eye its creator not as master but as victim, I knew I had to pull out my trump card.

"Rhys, the house is on fire!"

My yelling was largely unnecessary, as the thick black smoke had already begun to knock on his door. Ever the practical one, my friend; artist; collector (did I mention leaseholder...) came steaming into the room with a soaking wet blanket. Like some knight in dirty jeans he began beating and swearing at the fire, subduing it, defeating it, moulding it to his will and was soon able to contain it and then carry the still burning embers and throw them outside off the balcony while Patricia and I finished what was left with buckets of water.

The dying hiss will be with me for a long time...

Rhys came back ranting and raving and I tried to appear serious aside from my giggling while Patricia quietly stole away. As Rhys' face began to turn purple, I began to survey the damage around my room; the blackened floorboards; the cindered curtains; the smoky ceiling and crept back once more to that feeling of peace, of accomplishment. I realised the importance of taking action. In the depths of my soul, the knowledge that only experience can truly help us grow, to evolve, began to permeate. To fulfil our dreams, we must push boundaries, push limits, and break through existing paradigms.

"We must make mistakes in order to grow", I cried in stoned zealousness.

Rhys punched me in the stomach and left me lying in the ashes, like the phoenix, of my previous life...

It was Greece and I needed a shit. After driving for hours around mountains and valleys and gullys and sick to death of the constant babbling from my companions, I needed a shit. A need brought on by alcohol and Greek cuisine from the night before. Last night was good yeah, but fuck!

I spied a garage as we pulled up so I wasn't worried, a good old 'servo' toilet, sweet as. We all got out of the van, laughing and joking around, generally yuk-ing it up. This was Crete, and here we were looking out over the Sea of Libya. It was the first month of winter, but like a New Zealand spring day.

There was even a toilet by the beach. I sauntered over to it, pretty desperate by now but not showing it. I opened the door and was suddenly face to face with the worst fucking toilet I'd ever seen in my life. It stunk. There was shit everywhere, flies were buzzing through it, huge flies, thousands of them, and dirty piss water was meandering toward my bare feet. As my eyes adjusted to this dank, dark facility, I realized I was staring at the bane of any European traveler: a Turkish toilet. One small circular hole 6 inches in diameter was to house this massive load that was knocking at the gates of my ass.

I nearly spewed. Last night was banging at my ass and was now trying to escape out of my mouth as well. I dry retched like a new born lamb and when my eyes opened, time stopped. For a second I forgot the churning in my stomach, I forgot my clenched sphincter, I forgot the diseased toilet, Crete, everything. My dilated pupils narrowed on the empty toilet roll floating amidst the puddle of swill on the ground.

And then it all came back. The churning the banging the churning the banging and the horror that it wasn't going to go away soon. My brain started strategising- don't panic don't panic service station! Yeah ok. I winced out of the cubicle looking forlornly at the service station one hundred metres down the road. It seemed like I was looking through a telescope the wrong way. I hobbled towards it clenching so hard I thought might turn inside out.

"Hi Jon."

"Oh hey Felicity." Shit, Felicity's a nice girl and she wouldn't understand. Just pretend everything's cool.

"How are you?"

"Cool." I'm sweating now.

"Are you coming for a swim?"

"Yeah, I'm just going to the service station to get a drink."

"But there's a shop behind you." She's motioning to the store five metres to my left emblazoned with the image of twentysomethings guzzling back some kind of Greek soft drink.

"Well, actually I need to go to the toilet." Right there, I saw her view of me drop a few notches.

"Well, you've just come out of the toilet". Her smile is completely gone now. She is staring at a madman. THERE'S NO FUCKING TOILET PAPER AND I'M BUSTING FOR A SHIT.

"No toilet paper", I say with a dumb grin. Oh, she says and hops away towards the beach. I turn again to the agonizing distance between me and salvation.

"Jon". I turn. "I think it's closed".

I look at her trying to understand what she's saying while trying to keep my composure while trying not to defecate on the street while trying to count backwards from a thousand. What is she...Nooooo. I turn back. There is no pump man milling about, no earnest boy wiping windshields, there's no fucking cars. What the fuck! The world becomes a hum. I'm staring shit in the eye and its about to beat me.

Taverna.

A Greek resteraunt. Its sign shines like a beacon through my shitty fog. Haha shit, you haven't beaten me. I lurch toward it like a rabid dog, but the shakes take hold of me. Where are the people? As I get closer, the Closed sign seems to be delighting in itself. I look around. This whole fucking place is a summer tourist trap. The only people around are the yahooing mad New Zealanders on the beach I came with. Shit.

I clenched with all my might as I struggled to think my way out of this. One option was just to run shitting toward the water. It was only about two hundred metres away; the water would clean it off. I then thought about the horrified faces of the dozen girls as fish began to appear eating shit off their shoulders as my load broke apart in the Libyan Sea.

No, gotta save face, can't shit pants, gotta save face, can't shit pants. This became my mantra as I made my way up a side street. There was nothing that looked like a toilet, nothing. My God. Fuck. Fuck. Desperate now, a man with nothing to lose. If Satan had shown up right now wanting to buy my soul, I would have shat on his face.

I WANT TO SHHHIIIIIIIT! My whole being was screaming. 'What's that place', a voice screamed inside my head as came across an old building. 'HUUUURRRRRRRY!�Esaid another. I walked in. There was a short corridor leading to a flight of stairs, maybe this staircase would lead to a mighty throne for me to sit on. Shit. I gritted my teeth, clenched my ass and prayed that somehow this nightmare would end. I'm fucked if I knew what I would have said if I met anyone. At the top of the first flight was something that resembled a reception desk so I figured it must be some kind of hotel or bed and breakfast. I dunno, but my brain decided that accommodation equaled facilities and my body was ready to agree on anything. I climbed the stairs.

In a fury now, where where where? The question whirring across my mind. Second floor there's a door. Locked. Shit. Another door. Locked. Shit. Another. Fuck. Stairs, I'm racing, man, I'm dying, I'm going back to my friends with shit running down my leg, two university professors are there with them, and I'm trying to score one of the girls. No one will like me; no one likes anyone who shits their pants. I pause here as my brain throws up a memory of little Craig Rains coming in from playtime smelling funny with brown stains leaking out of his shorts. No one played with Craig after that.

As my future as the boy who no one will play with is about to unfold all over the floor, I saw a mop. I looked at the mop and saw it was in a bucket, an old grey metallic bucket with wooden handles. Next to the bucket was a packet of twelve rolls of toilet paper. Unopened.

White toilet paper.

Salivating, I ripped the pack, grabbed two rolls and ran down the stairs six at a time. I ran back towards the beach, beyond looking good now; I was an ungainly wild-eyed athlete racing my shit and I knew I was going to win. I hit the stinky Turkish floor and nearly slid over forgetting the shitty murk on the floor. Fuuuuccccck. Oh God, God. Pants off now, feet in the shit, it'll wash off, OOOOhhhhhhh. The last eighteen hours was being ejected from my intestine and I didn't care I wasn't getting it into their stupid little hole.

As I squatted there in the midday Cretan heat, my bowels whimpering their last, I realised I was never going to be able to breathe a word of my ordeal, never going to be able to explain my predicament, never could I bask in my eventual triumph.

Not until later that night over a few beers anyway.