The sounds of silence

by Sylvano - 2009-06-17 00:00:00

I was sitting on a camp site pit toilet listening to a currawong warbling to its mates in neighbouring trees. It was a very classy pit toilet: a rust-free corrugated iron shell, held in place by an attractive timber frame, which was recently constructed and clean.

I sat and waited.

As my focus shifted away from the external world to shepherd my internal processes through the first contraction and release of excreta, my ears tuned in for the expected splash that signals a successful delivery of payload.

I sat and waited.

But the splash never came. It took me a few seconds to realise that the distant, muffled slap I heard in place of a splash was the signal that my contribution had joined the pile of communal human waste far below.

I sat and listened.

With the welcomed relief came a new silence and contentment. No rush, no need to push and no other thing to do except to sit and listen while my organs did their job. After a while, my body began the ready itself for re-entry into the world and my arm reflexively reached for the flush button.

But there was none.

In a pit toilet, one isn't provided that middle class sensation of dispensation; that jettisoning beyond one's home of the unwanted muck. Instead, the pit toilet experience is a return to a simple, low key and unbroken flow of existence.