the Gorgon in the bowl

My bathroom is a disgusting color. Not quite scarlet or crimson, like fresh arterial blood, but more burgundy, like drying venous blood after an energetically executed murder. Even my toilet is burgundy, and I quickly discovered that that was a major problem: I can no longer look directly into the toilet after I take a shit. Back when I lived in residences that had white-porcelain toilets, staring triumphantly at my shit was a ritual so natural to me that I didn't even think about it. Now, however, thanks to the awful color of my current toilet bowl, I can no longer look at my shit without feeling nauseated.

I'm not sure what it is, but it's very likely that the queasy shit/burgundy contrast hits me on a visceral level. Surrounded by burgundy, my shit no longer looks human: it looks sickly, yellowish, leprous—more turd than shit. I feel no organic, motherly connection with it, and the color contrast sinks into my mind, threatening to paralyze me. So now, when I flush my toilet, I stare at the swirling image that's reflecting off my smooth, shiny burgundy-paneled wall, like Perseus staring into his shield to avoid the Gorgon's glare. Thanks to the color of my bathroom, my shit has become Medusa, snarling and lethal, and I can no longer feel the sense of achievement that I used to feel whenever I would stand up after a decent shit and look down into the bowl to behold my accomplishment.

Thus is my life become less than it was.


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