Penitence potty
Photo of a toilet pan in a bare field. There are some trees, a green field, and blue sky and clouds in the background.
I saw this here toilet in this here field as I was walking the North Downs Way near Harrietsham in Kent. As I paused with amusement at the complete lack of utility of a wild loo with no modesty screen or plumbing, four lads on quad bikes pulled up. ‘Say’, one said, ‘aren’t you the person who writes 10,000 Delights?’ I must say that it was exciting to be recognised so, and it is to them I owe this cautionary tale. Thanks be to Stevie, Ralph, Benson, and Peter.
You may be surprised to know that this isn’t a lavatory in the conventional sense. It is located at the far north western corner of an autonomous district called Rodorburg, which is adjacent to Harrietsham. Rodorburg has long since emancipated itself from both local and national government who eye it with suspicion, but have thus far not sought to suppress it, namely because they fear what might happen to their foot soldiers if they did.
Rodorburg is self-governing and the community has chosen an anarchist path of non-hierarchical righteousness and ecological harmony. They regeneratively farm their land and livestock and don’t bother with schools (hooray!). Instead, everyone learns hands-on skills which are actually socially useful and creatively fulfilling. They have no chronic disease or neurological disorders due to only eating real food, getting plentiful exercise, and not being forced to do boring as fuck things all day. It is, for all intents and purposes, a paradise. I have added my name to the transfer-in list, should they ever get an opening.
However, as the inhabitants of Rodorburg are human, they cannot be trusted to remain cooperative at all times, due to where we are collectively as a species on the evolutionary train. As such, Rodorburgians have a wild and terrifying punishment for those who forget the district’s ethos of non-hierarchical mutual aid. As I am sure you have guessed by now, it pertains to the loo-that-is-no-ordinary-loo in this here field.
To be clear, there is no crime or petty theft in Rodorburg. This is because no one has been inculcated into the myth of capitalism, so there is no excessive drive to consume mindless drivel and needless things. Nevertheless, the inhabitants have sadly noticed that, every now and then, a person develops the drive to be Supreme Leader Of Them All (SLOTA). Naturally, there is no place for a SLOTA in Rodorburg, so they are given two choices: leave the district and go live with the exploitative and consumptive soul-cannibals of the rest of England; or push down their SLOTA tendencies into the deepest reaches of their being, and promise to never act out their desires of dominance again.
Well, reader, I’m sure you know what happens when the SLOTA chooses option 2: latent SLOTA-ism. The drive festers down there in its iron and concrete psychological box until the repressed drive re-surfaces into some major crime of dominance. At which point, the Rodorburgians shake their collective heads, round the SLOTA up, and then break out the chainsaws, axes, and other such implements, from the communal tool shed.
The outcome is, I suspect, predictable. The SLOTA is informed that they had their choice and since they violated the sacred principles of autonomy and individuality, it’s time they met their maker. After which, and with very little ceremony indeed, the villagers bring the SLOTA out to this field at the edge of their district and form a giant circle with this toilet pan and the SLOTA in the centre.
Depending on other aspects of the SLOTA’s temperament, they may plead, deny, beg, or shout defiantly at this juncture. The Rodorburgians don’t care: they know the SLOTA made the bed they’re currently lying in. So without much ado, they rev up the chainsaws, swing their axes, and chop the SLOTA into tiny little pieces. After which they pop the SLOTA, piece-by-piece, into the potty and activate the magical meat grinder within. The not-loo then sprays out the SLOTA as a fine mist over the field as fertiliser. Job done: equity and mutuality restored.
So there you have it, reader. Sometimes you come across stories that need to be told, and I am grateful to Stevie, Ralph, Benson, and Peter for the intel. The clear moral of this story is that, autonomous communities don’t take any bullshit, so let’s start one and change the world. Amen.