Monday, August 12, 2019
On the morning of the first day of school, Diana Piccolo, the newest addition to the family at almost two years old, was stomping around the living room in her diaper, straining her lungs trying out her new favorite word.
"Chizzzzburggeeeeer!"
You won’t find chizzburgger in the Oxford English Dictionary. If it was there, there would be a note that the 'chizz' part of chizzburgger is especially useful for making a child's lips rumble like the engine of a lawnmower, which is, itself, good for wetting down the carpet with a coating of milk, spittle, and Honey-nut Cheerios. Her mother, Pauline Piccolo, had just turned her head away for about the time it takes for light to travel sixteen feet, when the toddler decided that everything in her mouth belonged on the carpet.
"Oh, my lord! Diana!" Pauline shouted.
The carpet had bounced back from worse. Diana had been awake mere minutes, and she was already attacking the house at a post-squash ravioli for lunch energy level. Her mother was frozen in a stunned silence after taking in the extent of the mess. A thin squeak emitted from her throat that their dog, Blame (it's a long story), heard and came in to investigate.
The dog saw the mess and approached it, sniffing. At 140 lbs. Blame, a humongous Kangal, took up the whole family couch when he napped. He started lapping up the Cheerios. After a minute, he decided he needed to get back to his job of guarding the house from timber wolves. Blame had never, actually, seen a timber wolf, nor did they exist in their part of the world, but knowing they did exist somewhere on the planet was enough to keep him on the lookout every waking moment. The Cheerios gone, the dog turned and left the room, leaving Pauline staring pensively over the mess, wondering if selling the house would get her out of shampooing the carpet again.
Martin Piccolo, father and Piccolo family patriarch (which left him, firmly, third-in-charge, after Mom and the dog), moped down the front staircase. Pauline heard him and spun around.
"Your turn!" she yelled.
Martin winced. "Oh, jeez. How bad?"
"Bad," she said, with some self-reproach.
"Where's the wet/dry vac?" Martin asked.
"That's a good question," Pauline said, scooping up Diana and examining the milk damage to her My Little Pony t-shirt. "I would start looking into that."
"Okay," said Martin, and he marched into the kitchen.
As the sun came up, Floyd was awake in bed. It had been another sleepless night. Several hours earlier he'd tried to reread some of his Tolkien book (which he’d read ten times), but around three a.m. he decided to put the books down and just admit that insomnia was winning the war for Middle Earth.
He knew what it was. High School. He'd heard every horror story. He'd seen every teen movie from Pretty In Pink to She’s All That. He learned two things from them: 1) Every girl is one makeover away from being popular; and 2) Anyone out-of-the-ordinary has it hard in HS.
Bowl Valley Junior High had been as dangerous as a booby-trap-filled Aztec temple. He’d broken his fingers when the retractable bleachers closed on them. He’d gotten trapped in the elevator overnight that single time he used it when he had a dead leg (he had to pee so bad the next morning that he had the firemen send down a bucket before lifting him out). He was the only kid who had received a pinched nerve while learning to barn dance in gym class. Luckily, he hadn't developed a reputation for causing disasters. He was strangely anonymous for being the twin brother of a wildly popular student. Being a bona fide nobody was the only prudent way to be Floyd, and he would do what he could to keep it that way.
He moved back to the bed, closed his eyes and started breathing deep and rhythmically, hoping that would somehow facilitate 'sleep mode' so he could get one healthy hour in before school. His door creaked faintly, and his left eye popped open slightly to reveal his brother Lloyd sneaking into his room. Lloyd's neat haircut made Floyd's bedhead look like a jumble.
"Well," said Lloyd in a low voice. "Did you actually sleep?"
"Nope," said Floyd, opening both eyes.
"Aww, man. You should've chugged some Robitussin or something."
"I'm really tired."
"You want me to go?"
"I'm not gonna sleep. How come you're up?"
"Nervous, I guess. Same as you.”
"Probably not exactly the same as me."
“I don’t know what’s gonna happen, either. I’ve been thinking we should do something after school. A club, maybe.”
“Like the HAM radio club?” Floyd chuckled.
“Yeah! Good one. Dad did that, didn’t he?”
“He was varsity!”
Lloyd doubled over with laughter. “Varsity HAM!”
Floyd clapped with delight. “Varsity HAM!”
The boys’ laughter took a minute or so do die out. After that was done, Lloyd got a serious look on his face. "I just think you need to do more. I insist you do more. You hardly do stuff."
"I know."
"You used to want to."
"I know."
"They've got drama classes. We could try something like that."
Floyd shrugged. "I don't know. If you do it, maybe."
"Okay, I'll do it, then. We'll both do some after school drama stuff. Oh wait, no! We can't have a speaking part in the play. I think you have to be a Junior. So, that’s like two years. We can still work behind the scenes, probably. With the props and stuff. Just can’t have a speaking part. I'll see if Melanie wants to join us." Melanie was Lloyd's girlfriend. They'd been dating for six months and were getting pretty serious.
"Okay," said Floyd.
"We'll figure something out. Maybe we'll start our own club."
Floyd seemed doubtful.
"I've done it before, Floyd. It's fun."
"Nah, that's your kind of thing."
"An identical twins club? Left-handed identical twins club?“
"Yeah! Ha! It'll be crowded!” Floyd laughed. “Oh, wait, I’m right-handed." Floyd gave his brother the evil eye, as he always did when Lloyd teased him, as he often did, about his righty status. It was a fact that every member of the Piccolo household was lefty, except for Floyd.
Lloyd shook his head and waved his left hand. “Weeeeeirdo.”
Though it was obvious the Piccolo brothers got along well with each other, people never failed to note just how different the twins seemed to be. Any person who knew the boys would naturally wonder just what happened that set them, identical twins, down two opposite paths in life. The truth is that the boys were never quite as identical as they looked on the outside. Since their birth, despite being raised in the same house, and loved equally by their parents, Floyd and Lloyd had led two very distinct lives.
A 'for instance' would be the family trip to the United Kingdom when they were both nine. After a sluggish day visiting the British Museum, watching their parents nodding thoughtfully at scratched old pots and saying 'hmm', their father told them they would be making the two-hour drive to Stonehenge the next morning. The boys shrieked with delight. They had heard stories about ghosts living there. Later on, after having a meal that their mother had said, with pursed lips, tasted undercooked, the family started to feel sick on the way back to the hotel. Floyd, unlike the others, developed a slight cough, as well.
Not liking the sound of the boy's cough, or the color of his complexion, they took the boy to the nearest emergency room. Something they did quite regularly. After idling for two hours in the waiting room, a nervous, bewildered doctor came out to talk to them. He insisted that they all be quarantined immediately.
The Piccolos were quite surprised to hear that Floyd had contracted Pneumonic Plague. The disease had been a real problem, on and off, since the year 1348. No one at the hospital had heard of it appearing in London since as far back as the Age of Enlightenment. The rest of the Piccolos were fine. Even their mild food poisoning had, by then, passed. The incident made the evening news.
This is, really, just one example from a life full of them. Floyd's family, eventually, got used to these happenings, as did Floyd, but it had a different effect on him than it had on them. They simply came to expect the complications that came with Floyd. So, they just had to be on their guard. For the boy, however, it was not so easy. He came to feel like a failure in many things, like he was deserving of the inevitable wreck that resulted from most anything he attempted. Every new disaster seemed like just another little note passed down to him from the universe, one that said it had noticed he'd been trying, again, and it was a little annoyed that he wasn't taking the hint. The universe was sending him a message, a message that said, basically...
Don't bother, Floyd.
Downstairs, Dad was having breakfast. It was too early for 'official' breakfast. This was Dad's alone time before the frying and the flap-jacking began. He was reading the newspaper and he looked up with a smile.
"What's wrong, buddy? Trouble sleeping again?"
"Sort of," said Floyd.
"You hungry?"
Floyd slid into a chair across the table from him. "I guess."
"Well, you don't have to guess. I'll just make you something."
"Okay."
Martin Piccolo was a veterinarian who had an almost supernatural affinity for treating the wounded. Hamsters and children alike. The minute he was within proximity of a bruise or laceration, no matter where or when, he sprang into action. He was the perfect father to have a kid like Floyd, who was once knocked unconscious by a bag of dirt.
Martin made his son a Spanish omelet, something Floyd had eaten on vacation (while sporting a black eye and a sprained ankle) and seemed to enjoy a whole lot, so Martin had learned to make them. It was kind of their thing. One of their things, anyway. When Martin set the plate in front of the boy, his mood seemed to improve instantly. Good food had that kind of effect, Martin had noticed. He got himself some juice and sat back down.
"Good?"
Floyd nodded, his mouth full of puffy, fried egg. "Uh-huh."
Martin sipped his orange juice and smacked his lips. "Aaah." He was eating just a plate of fried eggs, sunny side up. Floyd hated sunny side up, with all the white goo that looked like that stuff you have on the edges of your eyelids when you wake up in the morning. What did they call that? Eye poop?
Martin looked up. "So, what are you your classes today?"
Floyd shrugged. "I forget."
"High School's confusing."
"I think I've got Spanish."
"I took that for four years."
"You speak Spanish?"
"I used to be pretty good. I could carry on a conversation."
"You can't now?"
"A little bit. Not very well, though. It's just been too long."
"Say something."
Martin shook his head. "I...I...don't..."
"You said you could, a little bit."
"Okay, okay, wait." Martin took a deep breath. "Um..."
A minute passed. "You really don't remember anything?" Floyd asked, smiling. "You forgot four years of Spanish?"
"Well, okay. Um... Quiero una caseta con aseo."
"What is that?"
Martin shrugged. "That means something like 'I want a doghouse with a commode.'"
Built at a time when the valley had half the population it had now, Bowl Valley High School fits its twelve hundred students in any way it can. Classrooms are crammed with more desks than practical, leaving so little room that the kids must work together to get everyone seated, prying the cluster of desks apart so everyone can fit in. Then, when everything is settled, the kids lock the desks in rows tighter than brownies in a pan until class ends forty-seven minutes later.
The hallways are so packed that a situation resembling the game Red Rover is created the instant the bell sounds. When the deafening bell goes off and all the students are barfed out of their classrooms into the hall, smaller kids are sometimes seized up off their feet by their shoulders when bigger kids push in from both sides, leaving them dangling six inches off the floor, dog paddling with their legs.
Floyd and Lloyd were put in the O-P homeroom, near the school's Western entrance. The desks were designated with sheets of folded over construction paper bearing each student's name. For some reason, the names were not arranged according to any kind of system that made any sense to a human animal. All that was apparent to Floyd was that he was in the far-right corner, all the way in the back while his brother had an easy to reach seat in the first row. As Floyd fought his way to the back of the room, forcing his way past knees and the annoyed looks of students having to shove everything aside for him, Lloyd could hardly look. He just shook his head, feeling guilty, as usual.
Mrs. Funk watched Floyd, too, but her face was more impatient than sympathetic, her shriveled eyes peering large through the huge brown lenses of her eyeglasses. She buttoned up her frayed wool sweater, the same white as her hair. It was over eighty degrees outside. When every student was seated, she cleared her throat and got their attention. "All right, listen up," she said. "The seat you are in now is the seat you will be using for the next four years. If your seat is empty at the sound of the bell, you will be marked absent. End of story."
It wasn't exactly the end of the story, though. Mrs. Funk had a long list of rules for the students to forget. As for Floyd, his eyes felt heavy. He was tired. Really tired. He had a look around the room. Students were dressed a little less casually today. There were lots of shirts with collars buttoned up, new crease-less trousers or khakis, hair gel, etc. Everyone looked very stiff and nervous, starched and ironed, prepared for anything. This neat, nervous phase would pass. Within a week, these fancy-dressed kids would look like homeless serial killers. Elderly people would rush out into traffic when they saw them coming.
At the desk directly to Floyd's left was a boy who looked like he could be Mrs. Funk's grandson. He was very small, with thick glasses, too, and wore a pullover sweater, as well, despite the heat. His haircut was military trim and looked about an hour old. Floyd couldn't see the boy's name, but then the kid brushed the sign to the side of the desk to make room for his backpack, facing Floyd. It read P. Pitstick. What was P? Paul? Pablo? Porky? Porky seemed unlikely. And Pitstick? That couldn't be a real name. It made Floyd think of a wet lollipop all tangled up in armpit hair.
Floyd's phone buzzed in his pocket. He didn't fetch it, as he was sure Mrs. Funk would notice if he did it. Kids all over the room were texting on their phones, and she ignored it, but Floyd knew that if he tried it, she would suddenly care. Lloyd would understand. Only family ever wrote to him, and he could see his brother staring at his Samsung right now. Lloyd looked up at him and nodded, then he gestured to his phone. Floyd sighed, nodded back then reluctantly reached into his pocket.
Lloyd: Who's Screech? Sitting next to you?
Floyd thought about this. Who was Screech? Wasn't there some old tv show with a guy named Screech? Lloyd spent a lot of time on YouTube watching old television programs. It was the influence of their uncle Dan, who was still living in the 1980's. His hair was, anyway.
Floyd: Screech didn't wear glasses
Lloyd: Urkel then, I guess.
Floyd: Urkel?
Lloyd: Forget it. Just check his name.
Floyd: It's Pitstick
Lloyd: Pitstick? Man, I feel bad now. Poor kid.
Floyd: You should buy him a present, you'd both feel better
Lloyd: You think? Maybe a bow tie?
Floyd: I said get HIM a present, not urself
Lloyd: LOL.
Floyd looked up from his phone to see his elderly teacher staring him down from across the room. He turned off his phone, someone had to be made an example of, after all.
The first day of school looked like it would turn out much better for Floyd than he'd pictured. His very first class was Library, which was the Ninth Grade’s version of Study Hall, and it allowed him to get his bearings and strategize the best routes to his following classes. Those crowded halls were more than an inconvenience to Floyd, they were a nightmare that he would find himself living daily until graduation, should he last that long. He'd made sure to get himself a map of the school. His dad found him some jpegs that were just perfect. Floyd had been flipping through them all day on his iPad. It was just this kind of preparation that stood between him and utter destruction.
The school had been expanded on, over the last few years. A new wing was planned, but not begun. A supplemental classroom near the auto shop had been converted into a new boy's restroom to meet state guidelines for their school's soaring population. Since it was out of the way, Floyd figured few students would know about it, yet. He found it was better to be away from people as often as possible when business was on.
Floyd was always on the alert for the unexpected catastrophe. You see, if it was a super long shot, it would probably never happen twice. The odds were in his favor. But if it had never happened before, he knew it was just a matter of time before it did. That’s how he saw it, anyway. When it came to something that had happened already, like being bounced out of the back of a flatbed truck into a city fountain(one without water in it), he had been there and done that. He also had zero fear of both bicycle tires inexplicably exploding on him while riding down a steep hill. That was, also, in the rear-view mirror (even if it was kind of hard to remember). When it came to a new fear he’d developed, something like a sewer rat crawling out of a toilet pipe and biting him right on his skin seat, he had to be on alert, always, because it had never even come close to happening.
Second period on Mondays was Literature. Not only a subject that interested him (unlike Lloyd, he liked to read), but he was less likely to get a concussion than in Earth Science, which may, possibly, have rocks in the classroom. He had Math (ugh!) and Spanish, as well, today, but what really worried him was his last class of the day: P.E.
Phys Ed…
Floyd had endured Physical Abuse Class since the first grade. Back then, it was the worst. There was that sadistic game called Duck, Duck, Goose. The one where kids get in a circle while one of them was irresponsibly endowed with the power to judge whether someone else was a duck, yet another duck, or the shameful goose. Floyd got goosed, once. Goosed good. It just so happened that when he received his pat on the head a bee that had just landed right on his hair was caught underneath the patter's hand. The bee promptly stung Floyd in the scalp, then buzzed off to die. That was when Floyd discovered his alarmingly potent allergy to bees. He developed a huge, venom-filled weal on his head, and then went into full anaphylactic shock. His lips swelled up to the size of Angelina Jolie's. Their new, young teacher got so scared that she carelessly gave Floyd an epinephrine shot into his scalp where the sting occurred, which is probably the third worst place to inject anything.
Lunch went beautifully that first day. Floyd had never, not even once, eaten a hot lunch at any school he'd attended. The idea was simply repugnant to someone like him, who had once bitten into a Wendy's hamburger containing a shard of colored glass. Floyd was, of course, taken to the hospital. The incident did not make the local news.
As an aside, one of the EMT's on duty that day, who knew Piccolos quite well already, went to the trouble of identifying where the glass shard came from by comparing the colors on the on the glass to other cups released by Wendy's. This led the man down a deep Floyd rabbit hole that consumed him for nearly six months. He found the most likely source was a Star Trek promotional glass made by Wendy's fast food rival Burger King. The item had been discontinued for years. Explaining how it got there would be another Floyd rabbit hole I would not explore myself, but you’re welcome to have a look on your own.
Every night before bed, Floyd prepared his bag lunch very carefully. He laid out each item on the kitchen island, individually inspecting each slice of bread, cheese, meat, tomato, and lettuce, as if they were about to be put on display at the Museum of Natural History. The ritual had gotten him this far. It was a phenomenal success. He had been goosed so many times by food, that he knew what to look for. First of all, check the food for spoilage, and/or contamination. Secondly, if it didn't smell right, it wasn't right. There may be some good foods that smell bad, but Floyd preferred to remain forever wondering if that was true or not. Thirdly, if you aren't certain if it's good or not, remember that there are always Pop Tarts. Pop Tarts remain safe and edible longer than the lifespan of most Earthbound mammals. He'd never been goosed by Pop Tarts.
The cafeteria was cramped, even though Lloyd wasn't around to draw attention to him with the army of friends he would acquire by the end of the day. They didn't have the same lunch period, so people hardly noticed Floyd when he sat down at the end of a short rectangular table with a bunch of strangers. It was a corner table, near the windows, and seemingly allotted for those who were socially inept. Nobody was talking. There were lots of cautious looks, eyes darting around, several pairs of heavy glasses slowly sliding down the bridges of sweaty noses. They looked like a bunch of scared kids waiting to see the dentist with the world's loudest drill.
The kids didn't all look the same, of course, or dress the same. Like Floyd, though, something in them was apprehensive. Floyd doubted any of them were as nervous as he was, but that still left room for lots of nervousness. And, as if to tie them all together in a nice knot, down at the other end of the table, keeping to himself, was the mysterious P. Pitstick. As mysterious as any kid eating pizza Lunchables can be, anyway.
The halls were far less crowded and noisy during the latter half of lunch period, so Floyd wandered around the school. The library was on the small side. He gave the gymnasium a wide berth, looking over his shoulder as he went by, the same way a vampire tiptoes daintily past a crucifix store. The last class of the day, PE, was just a couple of hours off. It made Floyd's stomach curdle. After a few minutes, he realized it might be more than just the dread of being physically educated that was bothering him. Having memorized the school maps, he headed for the new restroom.
The restroom was very large, with four new, gleaming urinals that were opposed by three stalls, one of which, at the front, was handicapped accessible. Floyd opened the door to the third stall. He had a look around. It looked unused. Keeping this in mind, Floyd stepped in, raised one foot, and pressed the flushing handle with the bottom of his shoe. The bowl gurgled, agitated, but didn't flush.
"Aw, man!" cried Floyd.
But the noises didn't end there. There were followed by a train of huge, popping air bubbles from within the pipes, far beneath the tiles. Would sewer rats make noises like that as they climbed up from the netherworld? Suddenly, the bowl hiccuped, and the water level was instantly twice as high.
"Uh-oh," Floyd croaked. He spun around. Then he heard the splash. He spun back. Water was pouring from the commode. Instinctively, he leaped up onto the seat, his feet on either side of the mouth. He had just missed getting his shoes soaked in the cold, bubbling water. He was facing the wall, gripping the top of the stall's dividers. He turned around to face the door. For several long moments, he just watched the water cascade onto the floor. It wasn't stopping. Looking down at it, he was certain that his sewer rat nightmare was just about to come true. The image of them spilling out and over the porcelain, covering the floor, leaping and nipping at the bottoms of his shoes, was enough to make him squeeze his eyes shut and prepare himself for the worst.
There was a flush in the stall next to him, followed by a familiar gurgling sound, then a splash.
"Aaah!" a kid screamed. The scream was followed by some frantic scrambling and the rattling of a belt buckle.
Floyd didn't look over the stall wall, but he was concerned, nonetheless. "You, okay?" he asked.
"Yeah! Yeah! I'm okay. I'm fine."
"Yours is overflowing, too, I guess."
"Yeah! It flushed first, thankfully! But now I'm...oh, wow, I'm a little wet, and the water is..."
The kid's head popped up right next to Floyd's. It was the enigmatic P. Pitstick. His glasses were crooked on his face, they had unhooked on one ear.
"What's causing this?" asked Floyd. "I don't know anything about pipes and stuff."
P. Pitstick chewed on his lip, thinking it over. "Well, since it happened to you, too, it must be something to do with the old water pumping station. I'm not sure how this can happen, though."
"Whatta you mean, 'you, too'?"
"Just that one thing must be causing it. The odds of a commode overflow event this severe is relatively common, but two, though, just by chance, is millions against it. So, there's likely one single cause."
Floyd shrugged, odds and probabilities stopped impressing him long ago. Floyd couldn’t count on beating the odds, but the odds loved to beat on him. Everything seemed okay, though. This was more a hassle than anything dangerous. This was one of those incidents that put him out but didn't knock him out.
"What's your name?" Floyd asked. "We're in homeroom together."
"My name is Piers."
"Piers Pitstick."
"Yeah.”
"I’ve never heard that name before.”
“My last name?”
"Yeah. Well, I’ve never met a Piers, either. But Pitstick is a brand new one.”
"My grandparents were Welsh. My mother doesn't like to talk about that side of the family, though."
Floyd nodded. "Well, I guess that's not that important right now, with the flooding toilets and stuff."
"Right. That's true. Your name is Floyd Piccolo, right?"
Floyd's toilet burped, again. It startled Floyd, a little. "Yeah! Hey, what are the odds of sewer rats coming up through the pipes?"
Piers thought about it. “It happens far more often than people think, but it would be far more likely in an urban area, like a major city.”
Floyd was only hearing every other word. For some reason, he was starting to feel a little panicky. It wasn't good when something dragged on like this. Suddenly, the odds didn't seem so unimportant. It felt like one of those raw moments when the dice in the universe all roll sixes and the gates of possibility opened up and absolutely anything can happen. Floyd especially hated those moments because he always ended up in the hospital. "Yeah! The odds!"
"I would just be guessing."
"Guessing's fine!”
"Maybe one-in-fifty thousand that anytime you use the toilet a sewer rat can emerge from the bowl."
Floyd's eyes lit up. "Only fifty thousand!" he gasped. To him, those were simply awful odds.
There are a few problems to be on the lookout for when you assemble a high school restroom cheaply (without being overly concerned with legalities). First of all, you get security screws, the ones that fasten the stalls to the wall behind the toilets, that are too thin and less than half the length they need to be, and just waiting for a strong yank to tear them out.
Secondly, you may not get properly installed aluminum posts, so when you lean against the door you won’t have the added support of the stall's side wall bearing your weight and keeping the door from breaking off. This is a safeguard against the possibility that a kid who's standing on the toilet bowl suddenly bunny hops onto the door when a geyser of contaminated water opens up underneath him.
Thirdly, and this one is just as important, in your haste and thrift, you may attempt to save money letting the janitorial staff install pipes. No matter how easy Youtube makes it seem, no human being is a natural plumber. It takes training, you can't just plumb. So, when installing a water conservation system on industrial toilets, you might be tempted to take your custodian's word for it. He may be a very competent man (in most things, anyway), but when you flush the toilet that he and his cousins and buddies just finished installing for a fraction of the cost, it will probably explode just like a porcelain hand grenade. And both recently flushed toilets did just that.
If there is one thing that Floyd Piccolo learned during his short, complicated time on Earth, it was when to get the heck out of the way. If an engine starts smoking, get the heck out of the way. If your clothes washer starts to rumble a little too rudely, get the heck out of the way. If your overflowing toilet suddenly stops overflowing, empties, and then starts to make a sound from Jurassic World, get the heck out of the way.
So, after some buildup, and scrambling, amateur parkour which had our two heroes attempting stunts which would have left them embarrassed and apologizing if witnessed, the stalls collapsed forward, leaving Floyd face down in a urinal with the smell of a fragrant cherry deodorizing cake invading his nostrils. The seat of his toilet was shattered by a huge fist of air, firing porcelain chunks like a shotgun. Had Floyd stood up, things would have gone much worse for him, some sharp particles nicked the wall above him. Luckily, he was unconscious. Not so lucky, however, was being unconscious and having his nose and mouth submerged in the urinal water. In the world of Floyd Piccolo, however, this was fairly average bad fortune.
Far stranger was what happened to the second toilet. With a great POOF, it split in half, a crack like a fault line, zigzagging its way across the bottom of the concave bowl, making it look like a discarded eggshell. Then, with another huge POOF, the two halves broke apart and went two different directions with a spray of deadly, white pellets. The former inhabitant of the stall, one Piers Pitstick, was dangling with one leg hooked over the stall's left wall when the toilet split. He was screaming, too, and continued to scream, when that wall fell to the side.
A minute later, Piers was pulling himself together. He was soaked in cold, murky water from head-to-toe, but he wasn't hurt. His glasses were lost somewhere in the porcelain marsh the bathroom had become. He squinted and had a look around. When things came into focus, he noticed Floyd drowning in an inch of urinal water.
"Oh, gosh!" he yelled, scrambling to help. He had to climb over the fallen dividing walls that had tumbled like dominoes. The top of Floyd's head had struck the porcelain hard enough to knock him unconscious, fortunately (if that word is even applicable) not quite hard enough to chip either it or his head. He hung there. It looked like the urinal was oozing Floyd out of its mouth. Piers grabbed the backside of his jeans and yanked. Floyd popped out of the urinal and thudded on the fallen stall door frame. He was no longer drowning, but was he drowned already? Piers turned Floyd over onto his back with a grunt. He checked to see if his (hopefully) new friend was alive. To his joy, this was so.
“Oh, thank goodness!" he yelped, profoundly relieved. Floyd began to stir and moan. Piers got to his feet and stood over him. "You okay, Floyd?"
Floyd seemed oddly calm to Piers. As if practiced at this sort of thing. "Oh, god. How long was I out?" he asked.
"Only a minute. You shouldn't get up. Wait, you gotta get up. Get out of the bathroom. You hit your head. You might need an X-rays," said Piers.
Floyd rubbed his scalp. They were both rubbing their respective noggins, actually. "Nah. Doesn't feel too bad."
"You could have a concussion, though."
Floyd shook his head. "Nah. I don't."
"How do you know?"
Floyd let out a ragged sigh. "Cuz I never get them. Just lucky, I guess."