Celebrating 15 Years
choose your own adventure,
in Scenario one, you step out of your office, crossing the unremarkable hall into the Men’s Toilet, taking in the little hieroglyph of the stick figure with pants on the door. This is exercise, a break from computering. Once inside there are no windows, two cubicles, a second set of locks and everything is septic and strip-lit. Choose the left door because pop-psychology dictates most people choose the right. The door closes behind you are expected to lock yourself in a small tiled space completely devoid of character. You take your piss and leave, considering whether or not 6 oz. of urine is worth a flush, probably not, but you do it anyway out of respect for the Serbian girl who cleans the building.
Scenario 2! In Scenario two, you are in the Drakensberg Mountains (here be dragons) of Lesotho drinking joala (sorghum beer) with Men! Real men piss standing up against the kraal, which is the stone enclosure where cattle are kept. You stumble to the kraal at dusk and survey the scene while you relieve a quarter liter of hangoverinducing unfiltered homebrew against the chest-high rock pile listening to the snort and shuffle of beasts weighing hundreds of kilos. Mountain peaks 360°, wind, sun, rain, elements! Men armed with whips and fighting sticks on horseback shouting at you, each other, everybody within shouting distance! Drink during the day because by nightfall we must all be inside away from prowling spirits and tokolosi. Women are not allowed near kraals due to fears of menstrual pollution and the potential of exposing your privates. It feels good to piss outside your brain inebriated on fermented grain, and not consider the pros and cons of flushing.
Cralan Kelder, author of Give Some Word, has had work recently published in Zen Monster, Poetry Salzberg Review, and VLAK.
