The Pure Life of Dreams

Siobhan is mad at me and has gone off in a huff.

I leave to go into a student pub. It is early evening, in Copenhagen, young people crowding the bar.

At the back are the toilets, three stalls and when one comes free I check it out. Surprisingly it has clean white walls, and enough toilet roll, though the paper is grey. Then another comes free so I check to see if it is better. More rolls, white paper this time, also clean. And the last comes free so I check it too… I’ve been in student bars before. I need to be clean before facing the music and toilet dreams never end well.

Back at the first stall, I lift my travel pack and suit jacket onto a hook. The space is huge. Paper lines the bowl, thoughtfully. There is room to set everything down but when I start to sit, the liner slides off. A bright red foot tray is under the paper, follows the rim of the seat, in case you want to squat, feet balanced on the bowl. It is clean too, so I forget about the liner, remove the foot tray and sit directly on cold ceramic.

Outside it is bright enough for sunglasses, a beach town with a whitewashed glare; I haven’t been to Copenhagen, but I swear I am there. 1920s cars with gold headlamps on stalks gently meander and squawk, but the taxis are the black London cabs, they honk and are in a hurry. When I cross the road the old fashioned cars are the ones to stop, even when I am not at a cross road.

I climb a road curving up and to the left, past T-shirt stores, buckets of ice cream and Threshers, souvenirs stands selling rubber rings and air filled dolphin floats.

Across the road, Siobhan is eating at a restaurant, a covered terrace, balcony enclosed by a white picket fence. She is by the pavement’s edge and sees me, so I cut across the road and step through the gate, squeeze towards her table. A waitress carves the route, through tables crammed with people shoulder to shoulder.

Once I am by her side I ask Siobhan, What are you eating? but she is not talking to me. I tell the waitress, I will have French fries, Siobhan, the house salad.

Just as I am settling down, two young women also take their seats. We are packed tight, elbows touching, two round white tables pressed together, jostling for space, neither big enough for lunch.

The closest woman is blonde, short spiky hair, heavy black mascara traces her eyes.

Our plates arrive. She pulls out a deck of cards and deals a hand to her friend. She fans her cards, holds them up and away from my gaze.

“Stop shaking your carbs,” she says, only half amusingly, and I am at a loss for words.

“I can itch them instead,” I reply. But my joke falls flat.

She and her friend turn their noses up at at me, and Siobhan looks away.

Postcard by Hagens World via Flickr

I step out of the hotel and ask to hitch a ride in the back of a white van with a group of doctors. They also have to go to a conference, all of them dressed in white coats and talking amongst themselves about the day’s events. I check my papers, they’re in the case with me and we are headed downtown, the day bright with the early morning sun like you only find in Washington.

Then the van pitches suddenly to the right, down a steep spiral cobblestone street. We flit past old buildings covered with posters and tall enough to block out the sky.

“Woah!” the doctors cry out as they grip the door handles of the van.

I need to leave, it is the wrong way for me.

“Can I get out?’’ I plea with the driver, but only at the bottom, the van comes to a halt and the driver lets me go.

I am in a park, green manicured lawn, the walls on one side remind me of the Tower of London. Then I notice the doctors get out too and it becomes clear that they are actually sightseeing.

To get some directions I step into another hotel but realize I’ve forgotten something on the van. What was it? I have my wallet and my jacket jangles with keys. Whatever it was, it cannot have been important and first I need to pee.

“Can you tell me where the bathroom is?” I ask a woman in uniform.

She points up towards to the bar area. “Then go through to the steps on the other side”, she says.

I follow the sign through the bar, spot the entrance then slowly I descend slick orange and white marble steps glistening with moisture from below. The steps spiral down, each becoming more slippery, but instead of a bathroom I come to what looks like the steam room of a gym. There is a man behind the steamed up glass, whistling and the steps are fully wet now. I shouldn’t go in I think to myself, he is probably undressed and uncertainly, I turn back.

(Then I remember what it was, that I left my camera in the van, brand new, a pocket camera that I had rested between my thighs when in the van. It’s annoying, but it’s not my immediate concern.)

I am in a restaurant area when I ask the woman, I think she is the same person, “Where again is the bathroom?” But her answer is not clear.

“Look, I’m going to piss in that thing right there in the middle of the restaurant”, I retort, pointing at an oval shaped vase with toothed rim made of some sort of alabaster. It is pretty, but only a foot or so high, a strange place for it, in the middle of the restaurant. You could trip over the vase if you were not looking.

“You can’t do that!” she replies.

I take off my cardigan, and throw it on the ground in front of her for it is getting hot. Then I throw down my jacket, right there. A man comes into the restaurant, he doesn’t see it on the floor and steps right on the splayed out jacket.

“Hey!” I shout at him. “You’re standing on my jacket!”

He looks up at me threateningly, curls up his left sleeve and makes a fist to swipe me with. He is young, well built in a smart gray jacket; has a handsome face and short curly black hair.

I don’t want to fight. I feel an affinity with him… Instead it would be better for us to get a drink at the bar.

Photo by Stephen Bowler from PxHere

Tag: Toilet

Mad But Trying to Make Up in Copenhagen

Anxiety and Finding the Bathroom in a Hotel