Dirty toilets
It had been quite a long night for him after he received a strange letter. A strange letter from a strange person from the past. He thought he was already over it and had moved forward, because he believed that the strongest hatred and the biggest rejection is when you no longer pretend the person exists, nor the memory of them.
It was two paragraphs of nonsense, and he only read the first and the last sentences.
it’s been a while
we’re still friends, aren’t we?
He read the words with so much rage that, without realizing it, he crumpled the paper so badly it could no longer be read. With that, he threw the letter into the dustbin and let it crumple together with the other disgusting trash.
He was disgusted.
Two weeks later, he received the letter again with the same message.
are we still friends?
What was wrong with her? Was this a song by Tyler, The Creator, by any chance? Leave me alone, he thought. He could just say that by replying to her, but then he thought, again, that if he replied, his stance of pretending she’d already vanished would become a joke.
He let that sink in and went through his day like usual. Talked like usual, laughed like usual, joked like usual. But not at night.
He struggled. His chest hurt so badly that he had to take a pill whenever he couldn’t hold it in.
Some nights, he had a weird dream. Not a nightmare, but a weird one. He was in the middle of a nice house, a Scandinavian house like the ones you often see on Instagram or Pinterest. But when he stepped into the bathroom, he was disgusted. It was an old bathroom with old dirt everywhere.
He woke up worried.
The next day, the letter came again. This time, she didn’t ask him to be friends again. Instead, she just asked about his days, like they’d been talking like usual.
do you read the latest story in the Modern Love column of the New York Times? it’s so funny yet hurtful. i read it while thinking of my father. tell me what you thought!
She really didn’t give a damn about his neglect. She thought his silence was a good sign for her to just keep sending letters.
That night, he threw up after having a weird dream about an ugly bathroom in a beautiful house. This time, it was a modern Japanese-style house. How could a modern Japanese house have such an ugly bathroom, when the random toilet you’d find on a random street in Japan was cleaner than any bathroom in this town?
“What’s with this weird toilet dream you always talk about?”
The shopkeeper at the main street bookstore looked at him strangely after he told him about the dream for the third month in a row.
“I don’t know, that’s why I’m sharing it with you, hoping you can see it from another angle. You read so many books, maybe you have a unique view on it.”
The shopkeeper sighed.
“You need a book recommendation after a weird dream?”
He nodded. “Also, I always get this strange ache in my chest, every 8 PM, or right before I go to sleep.”
“Go to a doctor. Or maybe a psychiatrist. Not a bookstore. Also, you’re weird. A clean house with a dirty toilet. Nobody’s house is that clean. Some people just hide the mess better than others.”
“You’re not helping.”
“I’m just a shopkeeper, young man.”
They stared at each other.
With that, he walked home with a heavy heart. He didn’t realize his strange ache and his weird dreams were caused by the strange letters from an old acquaintance.
Until he received the strange letter again.
This time, he was shaking. He didn’t know if it was from the coffee he’d drunk earlier, or the fact that he was so angry to receive the innocent-sounding letter again.
hi, just want to know if you’ve already watched the latest movie from Joachim Trier.
Without hesitation, he opened his phone and scrolled through his blocked numbers until he found it. He found her number and called her without a second thought.
“What do you want to say, honestly? Stop sending me weird, unimportant messages through letters. It’s 2026.”
He didn’t know which feeling was pouring through his voice. Was it anger, curiosity, or longing?
“I just want to talk to you,” she said on the other end of the phone.
“What? Just say it, and then leave.”
There was a pause on the other side, and then she continued. “I want to reconnect with you, if there’s any chance. But you never answered my letters, so…”
Rage fully covered his heart and body, so much that it hurt.
“Didn’t you get the message that I wasn’t going to reply to any of your letters? Don’t contact me again.”
Without a pause, she replied quickly. “Is that so? Thanks for letting me know, then.”
Silence. His chest hurt so much that he couldn’t respond.
No apology, no explanation, no anything. She thought she was doing the right thing. It hurt, and it made him so mad that she didn’t admit she was wrong. Let’s not even talk about admitting it, maybe she was just too stupid to understand that she was wrong at all.
Slowly, he hung up the phone without saying any final words.
He held his chest and tried to calm himself, so as not to let the anger take over his soul. Without realizing it, it was already morning. He slept like a log that night.
And the night after. And the week after.
Without the weirdest toilet dream.
“I’m not dreaming about the toilet again,”
That evening, he visited the bookstore and talked to the same shopkeeper.
“Good for you,” he said flatly, completely uninterested in him.
He walked away and went straight home. Later, he realized that cutting ties with her had made his life much lighter and easier.
That night, there was no dream. No Scandinavian house, no Japanese house, no dirty toilet waiting for him behind a beautiful door. Just sleep: the plain, dreamless kind.
And with that, he learned something about his stance.
Maybe pretending the person you hate doesn’t exist anymore is hurtful for other people. But it’s not for you. Instead, you’re haunted. Cutting ties means you really cut it off hard, and from yourself. So the memories or the presence of that person no longer haunt you through a dirty, ugly toilet.
And that was his closure.
