You pull out your newly purchased cleaning products and lift up the lid of Jonas’s porcelain bowl, effectively muting him as you do so, to give his insides a quick damage assessment. As you look you resist the impulse to do a double take when you catch sight of a large skid mark running along the base of your friends bowl and instead do your best to maintain a neutral expression for his sake. With a pop of the container and a thorough application of cleaning products you quickly get to work scrubbing away all traces of his recent violation. In a way it almost seems like you’re brushing his teeth as the concoction froths up throughout his bowl with each scrub. In short order he is back to pristine condition and with a final flush to rinse out any remaining chemicals Jonas is left with only the faintest odour of bleach leaving him as fresh and sterile as his brand new doppelgänger boxed up in the hallway.
“Ah thanks that feels much better,“ Jonas says in relief the moment you put his lid back down. “I didn’t realise how bad it felt to have that, um... stuff... in my mouth until it was gone!”
“Ha, I would say ‘any time’ but hopefully there won’t be another.” You reply light heartedly. There is a noticeable pause in the air before Jonas responds.
“I really hope you’re right.” He says in a more serious tone, pausing again before continuing. “Hey... um... that guy said he was going out for an hour right? I was a bit out of it last night but I’m sure it didn’t take you anywhere near that long to hook me up. Do you, um, do you think you could try and swap me with the other toilet he brought before he gets back? I’m just... really scared of going through that again when he is refilled from lunch...” Jonas trailed off.
“I guess I can try,“ you say chastising yourself for not realising something so obvious. “It’s not like I’ll be doing anything other than keep you company till he gets back if I don’t. Fingers crossed I can do it all before he gets back so I don’t have to cop an earful again.”
“Thank you!” Jonas exclaimed in clear relief. Turning around you start to head in the direction of your room to grab your tools but pause mid stride.
“Hey it’s your lucky day, he left his gear here. I can start right now and maybe be done a bit faster with actual plumbing tools.” You say as you catch sight of them next to the door. You pick them up and get to work reversing your efforts from the night before, first by shutting off the water intake and flushing Jonas’s tank dry before proceeding to the disconnection process in earnest. Throughout the work you note that Jonas maintain the stillness of a true inanimate object evidently waiting patiently as one might wait for a haircut to finish. Turns out loosening fresh bolts is easier than tightening them and pulling out Jonas proceeds much faster than his install. Less than 15 minutes after the workman left you have Jonas out and free.
“There you go, how’s that feel?” You say feeling pretty pleased with yourself. Jonas gives a excited nod, nearly over balancing, but otherwise remains quiet before shifting around in apparent confusion.
“That’s weird” you say looking at him quizzically. You walk over to inspect him and lift up his lid to see what’s wrong. “Ah that’s strange, your water isn’t refilling like it did before. I guess you need it to talk or something.” Jonas shuffled about at that statement.
“Hey hey don’t worry, it’s an easy fix.” you reassure him as you walk over to the sink and fill a container with water from the tap and proceed to pour it in his bowl. “There try it now.” You say as you close his lid.
“Hel- ah yes, that worked. And yeah, feels good to be free of those pipes.” Jonas said with a newly audible sound of relief and a wobble. “Even though I’m a bit less steady on my feet now.”
“I wonder why you didn’t auto fill.” You wonder out loud before dismissing the thought “Ah well it doesn’t matter in a few hours you will be back to normal anyway, or a dragon.” You add with a chuckle. “Here I’ll take you out to watch TV, I’m sure you want to be as far away from here as possible and watching me hook up a new toilet won’t exactly be thrilling stuff.”
Jonas had a laugh at that and submits as you squat down to pick him up. ‘Ugh boy he’s heavy, Maybe I should have made him walk himself’ you think to yourself as you bear hug him in an effort to keep your grip as you carry him to the lounge room. As you pass by the front hallway you catch sight of the workman’s new toilet still boxed up near the front door.
Upon arrival at your destination you set Jonas down and spend a moment finding a show he finds acceptable before heading back to the adjoining hallway next to the front door to retrieve the new toilet from it’s box. Having learnt your lesson breaking your back with Jonas you decide to open the already unsealed box and take it to the bathroom in stages. Removing the disturbed surface layer of packing foam you ease out the porcelain toilet from its box and set it aside, in part to recover from the exertion but also to look for other parts in the box. As you look over the toilet you note that all of the major components have already been affixed, evidently the workman had begun assembly before discovering you had already installed your own ‘toilet’ already. Rummaging through the remaining foam and air packing bags you retrieve the toilet seat, lid and a loose bag of bolts and screws, but noticing that the latter seem to match what you already have you toss the bag back into the box along with the rest of the foam you removed and begin hauling what you need to your ensuite bathroom.
Back in the bathroom you inspect your newly acquired non-sentient toilet more closely and are thankful that it seems to be basically the same model as Jonas. With your recent unplanned practice you feel pretty confident that it should be a pretty straight forward job to bolt it in place. Hell you may actually finish up before the hour. You begin to absorb yourself in your work as that thought strikes you when, as if on cue, you hear the sound of an engine pulling up outside and the dull thud of a car door open and shut. Worried that you had lost track of time you check your phone to see if the workman is due back yet. Not even close, the same guy had been working here all week and if he was back before the hour today then it would be a first. Sure enough the workman didn’t enter the bathroom and the lingering question became moot a few minutes later when the thud of the door repeated and the sound quickly dissipated. Probably just the mail.
‘I may actually be done with this before he gets back after all.’ You think to yourself before refocusing your attention on the task at hand.
* * * * * * * *
Not long ago...
"I'm going on lunch. Be back in an hour." The workman called out as he headed out the door to his car. Skipping the install of the toilet meant he had had to focus on more labour intensive tasks today than he had planned and had worked up quite the appetite.
Pushing aside an empty takeaway box that had somehow made its way onto the drivers seat during his absence he set himself down in his truck and reached for the ignition when he was interrupted by his phone ringing. Fishing it out he looked at the number and recognised it as one of his coworkers and knew he couldn’t ignore it. With a sigh, and hoping that whatever this was wouldn’t eat into his break, he answered.
“Hey what’s up?”
A pause.
“Ah shit man that sucks, but yeah your in luck. My client ended up installing their own overnight so the one at my job is available. I mean I’ve opened it already and done the assembly, but other than that it’s boxed up new.”
Another pause.
“Yeah no problem it’s all yours, saves me having to lug it back myself. If my guy still wants it he can have the one you’ve got on order. Anyway I’m heading off to lunch at the moment but the clients home so you should just be able to pick it up yourself.”
A final pause.
“Ha, no prob man happy to help. It’s just inside the door, can’t miss it. Anyway gotta run I’m starving, see ya.”
* * * * * * * *
A short time later...
“This ones good” Jonas said to his friend as he finally stopped on a show worth watching. Midday TV was slim pickings at best but at least this one was tolerable.
“Ok, have fun. I’ll be in the bathroom, yell out if you need me to change the channel or something.” He said as he walked out into the hall.
After a frustratingly brief period of time, the show Jonas was watching came to an end and he found himself forced to suffer through the ear bleeding infomercials that followed it.
“Hey can you change the channel?!” He called out, but realised immediately upon his attempt that his limited vocal capacity really lacked the ability to project across the house.
Being transformed into a toilet, even used as one TWICE, was one thing to suffer through, but he was in no mood to add this drivel to his nightmare as well. Although movement had been challenging in the past, Jonas decided to hop his way back to the bathroom. At least that was his intention, he managed one unsteady hop forward before overbalancing when the livingroom rug bunched up under him and collapsed on his side. He landed with a dull thud and instinctively called out in surprise only to feel his voice fail him as his precious water flung out his mouth onto the rug.
Jonas struggled about on the floor without much success, managing only to rotate himself in a haphazard circle several times over. After a few minutes of futility he noticed that each new burst of movement had become weaker than the last as his stamina gave out on him. Then with one last feeble wobble he felt a stiffness sweep across his porcelain body and he was done, immobile. Scared by this sudden paralysis as well as immensely frustrated and embarrassed by his powerlessness, Jonas lay there mute and paralysed.
‘Why the hell did he think it would be fun to turn me into a god damn toilet?!’ Jonas snapped in his mind, his frustrations over his ridiculous situation finally coming to a head as he mentally raged at his friend.
If nothing else he had managed to end up looking out the doorway, so at the very least he could keep an eye out for his friend and in turn be seen by him. Unfortunately there was now no escaping the repetitious droning of the Gymlabs Total-Body-Ab-Blaster infomercial, your’s now for just four easy payments on screen now…
The TV was spewing out a series of scripted testimonials when Jonas was roused from his stupor by the slamming of a nearby car door. Before he had time to process the implications he heard footsteps and the sound of the front door open. While Jonas could see out the living room doorway the angle wasn’t great, as the figure rounded the corner he could only make out his lower half. It was enough though, if the workman’s uniform hadn’t been seared into Jonas memory when the man wearing it had defiled him earlier, then it certainly was in the hours he had spent watching him work on the bathroom after the fact. Not really capable of much else at present Jonas lay there inanimate. At least his friend would get shooed out of the bathroom now and be able to help him up, he thought to himself. One step closer to freedom.
“Ahhh, there it is” came a deep, masculine, and entirely unfamiliar voice that shocked Jonas, and, moments later sent cold chills of terror down what currently passed for his spine. “‘Boxed up’ my ass though...” the figure said in a faintly exasperated tone, as he made moves directly towards Jonas.
‘Wait, what the hell does that mean?!’ Jonas thought in a panic to himself as the apparently unknown workman approached, dragging in his wake the opened and empty box for the other toilet that his friend was currently installing.
‘Oh my god no, he’s not going to- he can’t be- anything but-‘ Jonas screamed incoherently in his mind as the gravity of his situation dawned on him. Both his voice and body failed to respond to his frantic desire for this man to see him as anything other than a toilet in that moment.
“Ok let’s get you boxed up then.” The man muttered as he squatted down before Jonas, and with barely an effort had him back upright. Profuse and silent screams for attention raged unheard as the workman, with an entirely bored expression on his face, set about what was to him the entirely routine and unremarkable task of removing the foam and plastic air bags from the box to make room for the stray toilet. The man then reached towards Jonas and with a brief flex of his muscled arms Jonas was suplexed upward and downwards into the claustrophobic cardboard prison, slotting snuggly into a foam cutout on the bottom. The man then upended the remaining packaging into the box and resealed the terrified and frantic, but nonetheless mundane toilet form of Jonas away in darkness.
Beside himself with panic Jonas could do nothing locked in the dark as he felt himself be lifted up once more, with an accompanying grunt of exertion from his jailer, and carried away. Where was this guy taking him?! The walking continued with jolt after jolt as with each step the workman carried Jonas farther and farther away from possibility of rescue. There was a pause in movement and a momentary feeling of weightlessness hit Jonas, followed by a rough collision with the unmistakable vibrating surface of some sort of vehicle. Outside his prison Jonas could hear rummaging and the sudden tightening of his confined space as the workman tied down the load in the bed of his truck for transport. The slam of a door. The rev of an engine. Then G-force as Jonas felt himself moving at speed to a location unknown but to the horrifying, unthinkable, destiny of a toilet.