Hearing a colleague taking a shit is exhilarating.
You learn more about them than you do
from any morning lift queue small talk.
You get an insight into their diet,
their pain threshold, their temperament.
I once heard a man in the cubicle next me
talking on the phone while his bum bullets
fired against the watery target beneath him.
I flushed my toilet, for a laugh, and he said
Yes mum, it’s 10am, of course I’m on the loo.
I went home thinking I’d love to be him for a day.

© Carl Burkitt 2020