Apparently a sunnier Tuesday makes waking up less of a misery. At least for me. Oh well, at least I am awake, and even awake before coffee. I love when I wake up and am conscious enough to use the French Press instead of relying on the automatic drip. Bad things happen if i try for the French Press when only half awake. But today…French Press. So before I put it on, lets go for the morning writing prompt shall we? Everyone joining in give those fingers a little wake up stretch and wiggle and let’s begin.
I can honestly say I had no idea where I was going to take this sentence. I floundered a bit with it, but I kind of like where I was going. I think it could be interesting with a whole lot of paring down and a bit of thought. Definitely one to keep for the files.
Tuesday, January 26th: The story was repeated so often it entered into myth.
The story was repeated so often it entered into myth. Keith and the night of the exploding toilet. Everyone was so certain of the details, in fact there were certain details that could never be left out. The complete explosion of the commode. The fountain of water that erupted like a geyser. The flood and the fact that it took six, that’s right six men to shut off the water so the destroyed bathroom could be drained.
Everything else was up for grabs. Some claimed that Keith was hauled off for jail others that he got off scot free. What was certain was that Keith was never heard from again. That was it for him. Wherever he ended up, it wasn’t here. No one ever saw him again, that was almost as much a part of the story as anything else.
Once a few years after the incident, I ran into Keith. I was one of the few to leave our town. I returned at holidays but for the most part, my life, my world was established elsewhere. When I returned home and someone once again circled around to the story of Keith and the exploding toilet. I thought about commenting. Of letting them know that Keith still existed outside of the story. I didn’t though. Not for any respect for the story and its mythos. Not even for any respect for Keith to be honest. It just felt wrong to bring him back to Garretville. Especially when I had such a short rather ordinary story to tell. We were in a coffee shop and he recognized me. I thought him vaguely familiar and we chatted for a few moments to figure out where we recognized each other from. After a few minutes of comparing notes on acquaintances and recent pasts, it clicked and Garetteville was mentioned.
I remembered him nodding over coffee and saying, ‘Oh yeah, nice town,’ and then letting it go. We chatted for a few more minutes about inanities, but then the coffee was done and we each went our separate ways. To Keith, Garettville was no more than a blip in his past. It brought no real shared hilarity or reminiscence. Yet each time home it seemed I heard the story repeated. And each time it seemed more deeply etched in the minds of those who stayed in Garettville. On my last visit home, people who were not even alive when the incident happened told the story as though they had been there and I realized any window I had to comment on the ‘he was never heard from again’ had closed. Keith was no longer a person. It didn’t matter that I now saw him routinely or that we occasionally hung out, our association moving well past the incident of the exploding toilet. That Keith and the Keith of legend were no longer even the same person. They were just two people who bore the same name.
Sometimes I wondered about asking Keith about the incident, to see if he even remembered it and to see if his recollection bore any resemblance to the story I knew by heart. I could never bring myself to do that anymore than I could mention his existence to those back in Garettville. And that of course was the root of the disaster that followed. Perhaps if I brought it up things would have turned out differently.
Ten til Midnight 