ANGELCAKE

Chapter 5 - The Bitch

∞ 5 ∞

THE BITCH

Valentina came out of the outside toilet in a foul mood. She pushed the door behind her hard with the back of her foot in an effort to slam it and nearly lost her balance. She had on rubber gloves and was carrying the crumpled, dripping object she had dislodged from the bend in the toilet. She was holding the offensive thing balanced between two short tree branches, as far as possible away from her body and walking rapidly toward the compost pile. Breathing through her mouth, she stopped in the grass for a moment checking her arms and clothing, wincingly and feeling like she was about to retch. A little of the water had SPLASHED-ON-HER-FACE! when she was pulling it out! She just needed to check that nothing else had gotten on her. If her stomach weren't so strong, she would have surely vomited by now. She wanted to disappear. After dropping the vile thing a few times and re-balancing it back between the unhandy branches, she finally got it to the compost heap and left it there.

It was one of those paper carton sandwich containers with the cellophane window on top that 'someone' had squashed into a ball and had flushed (unsuccessfully) down the toilet. She had already had the screaming row with 'Him' about it earlier, before she steeled herself up to finish fishing it out, along with a metal spoon(!) that had been flushed along with it. He had stared blankly at the thing, seemingly having no idea of what a store-bought sandwich carton even was.

'Wasn't it bad enough that the inside toilet wasn't working?! It was already inconvenient enough getting up in the middle of the night to go out there, without having to resort to the bushes!'

'It was nothing to do with him; it clearly said "Sausage" and he didn't eat sausage. He was a vegetarian.'

'Who else could have put it there, then?'

'He didn't know. Probably one of the builders.'

'The builders hadn't been there for over a year – almost two.'

'The neighbour then, or the postman (he was always hanging about, she probably fancied him).'

'Don't be disgusting! And what on this Earth could either of them be doing with a sandwich carton from TESCO?! Were Tesco's sausage sandwiches so good that one of them had to go all the way to England to get one?.. And then instead of throwing the container in the rubbish bin, like any sane person, why had either of them decided to go out of their way to visit THEIR miserable little toilet with the idea of blocking it up? (Because no one in their right mind could actually expect a thing like that to flush without a problem!) Obviously, they knew that a sandwich container was the perfect item with which to make their punishment (because it clearly was some sort of punishment)!... And of course neither of them noticed when the guilty person came in and took a spoon out of their cupboard to flush along with it, just to be extra annoying.'

'He didn't know. She should ask herself why she allowed either of them to be using their toilet. She was encouraging them probably, while he was off working hard, for his hard earned money. He himself had never even been inside a Tesco; the company had a deplorable standard of ethics, which he categorically refused to support. In fact he would rather go hungry than shop at Tesco! And in any case, going in the bushes saved valuable natural resources and energy – she might consider the importance of real issues like that once in a while! Really, she should try to enlighten herself more often by reading more about water and other important environmental things like he did. That was the problem with most consumers today: they existed in a completely unconscious state, which was the cause of many modern maladies such as global warming. It was tragic. He himself was going to do everything in his not inconsiderable capabilities, to make the world a better place. She ought to consider following his example.'