The Sanitary Inspector of Nogichokta

Twenty three months ago, I started working as the Sanitary Inspector in the small gloomy village called Nogichokta. You must be wondering how a guy like me, who used to work as an Assistant Librarian in the biggest library of the ‘Foohm University’, winded up in a rotten village, which was located in the middle of nowhere, where people defecated in open in the corn-fields and everyone was illiterate and worked as a farmer. Let me tell you, I had been hired by the head of the ‘No-Smell-No-Stain Sanitation Org.’ and the reason was that I, in his own words, saved his ‘life’ when he got stuck in the library toilet. I still remember that day when he came in the ‘Foohm University’ as a guest lecturer to participate in the discussion on ‘Time to clean your shit’ and it was coincidentally the day of the launch of his autobiographical book titled ‘How I cleaned my Shit and told Everyone’. That evening, I was secretly reading the recently-discovered copy of ‘Delta of Venus’ by Anais Nin at the back of the ‘Finnish Philosophy’ book-shelf and I suddenly heard a whistle-like sound, I ignored it first but then I felt a great urge, which compelled me, to go and look for the source of the ‘whistle’. I realized that the sound was coming from the only-toilet of the library which seemed occupied by someone and locked from the inside. I knocked, I took the occupant as some ugly masturbator kid from the University and I started beating the door madly, but when I got the whistle-sound as the only reply, I took out the duplicate key of the lock of the toilet-door and opened it. To my amazement, I saw a man above fifty years of age, sitting on the toilet-seat, his eyes were open but both of his pupils were invisible, and his closed-mouth was the source of the whistle-sound. He was dressed in his steel-gray three-piece suit but his face was as still as a dead mouse. I knew who he was, he was on the posters which talked about the discussion which happened in the morning, I clapped and tried to wake him up from his trance-like sleep but he didn’t flinch. I thought if I just gently touch and move him, he might wake up but when I tried to move him by his shoulders, I simply couldn’t, he was sitting there like an immovable rock, just like his face, his whole body was dead stiff. I got scared and when I get scared I splash water on my face but I didn’t want him to think that I was scared so I resisted the idea and stood there for few more minutes with my hands in my pockets and I just looked at his pupil-less white eyes. I don’t know what came in my head but I, unconsciously, pressed the ‘flush’ button of the toilet seat on which he was sitting and I seriously have no recollections of what happened in the next fifteen minutes after that, as I had fainted the moment the flush made a ‘thhhooooofffhwoaaaaahhhhh’ sound. When I woke up, I was sitting on my chair on the reception of the library and my pocket had a note which said ‘Thanks for saving my life, I have a BETTER-PAID job for you, come meet me in my office. 9am – 1pm, Tomorrow. – Dr. P. Phissures’, and in the other pocket I had his business card. Next day I went to his office ‘No-Smell-No-Stain Sanitation Org.’ and a middle aged lady, who was Dr. Phissures’s secretary, greeted me and gave me an envelope which contained an offer letter for the designation of ‘Official Sanitary Inspector’ of Nogichokta village, the money was four times more than what I was getting as an Assistant Librarian. I told the middle aged woman that I was more than happy to work as the Sanitary Inspector but knew anything about the job. She smiled and gave me a book, titled – ‘Find your Sanitary Inspector in YOU’ by Dr. P. Phissures.

I received a warm welcome by the staff of Nogichokta office, they assigned me three Assistant Sanitary Inspectors who took care of almost all of my work. In few days I realized that all I had to do was to sign all the official documents presented by my assistants and to inaugurate all the newly made public-toilets by my ‘No-Smell-No-Stain’ Org., which was a revolutionary step in the welfare of the people of Nogichokta as no one was aware of the concept of a ‘toilet’. Wherever I used to go, people looked at me with respect and awe. Initially I liked the celebrity status but in the twelfth month I got bored of the job or may be I got depressed of the slow village life, loneliness took toll on me as I couldn’t make any friends, in or around the village and sent a letter to Dr. Phissures, asking if he could transfer me to his Headquarter Office which was there in the hip ‘Mowmonny’ city, in reply he sent me a letter, which had just one sentence – ‘You are there for a Purpose, You will get to know about that very soon’. At that time I thought he was just bluffing and chose not to ask about the mentioned ‘purpose’ of me being in Nogichokta. Then after one week or so, one of my assistant presented me a report which showed the unbelievable improvement in the level of cleanliness of the public toilets, it improved by a magnificent 70% growth rate. That month, the State Government gave a special award to ‘No-Smell-No-Stain Sanitation Org.’ for its major contribution in maintaining clean and healthy environment in Nogichokta and I, also, received the ‘Best Sanitation Inspector of the country’ award in the same month. I knew something was not right, I knew something weird was happening in Nogichokta. I asked my assistants to arrange a tour of the village and its public toilets and the next day along with one assistant I went out to check all the public toilets and to roam around in Nogichokta. I knew something was wrong. It was actually the first time I was roaming around freely in the village, as I only knew just those places where I had inaugurated new public toilets for the welfare of the people, so it was different this time. When we arrived at the first public-toilet, I was amazed, it was shining and sparklingly clean. I could not believe my eyes and there was no stench of shit or piss, somehow it smelled of an unknown pleasant flower. We went to another one, and it was also clean and shiny and smelled the same and mysteriously every public-toilet in the village looked ridiculously clean and tidy as if people came here and, literally, licked off the shit and drops of piss and it gave off the same pleasant unknown flower-smell. I had not noticed earlier that my assistant who was with me, was wearing a face mask, kind of surgical one which doctors use in hospitals and I was unaware of it. When I came back from the office, that evening, my maid was gone after preparing the dinner and I ate the dinner while reading the newspaper but somehow could not wipe out the images of super-clean public toilets off my head. Before going to sleep I went to take the piss in the bathroom. Everything was normal with me, I was trying to solve the mystery of super-clean public toilets in my head, after pulling the hook of the flush, I laid my eyes on the toilet seat and then I felt a strong sensation growing in me which was kind of forcing me to lick my toilet bowl. I shook off my head and jerked violently and came out of the washroom and slept. In the morning, half sleepy, I went to the toilet and sat on the toilet seat, after defacating I got up and unconsciously started licking the toilet seat. I was half-sleepy but I knew what I was doing, in few seconds I was licking my own shit with my head inside the toilet bowl because of some unknown mythical power, which was pulling me towards shit. My half-self was struggling with that magnetism of shit licking hypnotism and somehow I managed to pull the flush-hook which unleashed the hidden tsunami from the walls of the toilet bowl and took away all the shit along with the thunderous waves of water. I got up and washed my face and tried to puke out the shit which I had eaten in trance and brushed my mouth five times before leaving for office. I think now I knew what was happening, when I reached my office I called the assistant who was with me the previous day, his face still covered with surgical mask. He told me that nobody knows anything about that peculiar smell but its only because of that mysterious ‘smell’, everybody in the village has started licking the toilets. I couldn’t believe him but then he told me if I still don’t believe him I can go and have a look at the people licking the public toilets in some-shit-craze-trance, in the morning and in the evening time as the whole village shat and pissed only in the morning or in the evening, never at any other time of the day. I told him that I only believe what I see, so we planned to go in the evening and he arranged a face mask for me. When we reached the first public toilet, my assistant showed reluctance to enter and to look inside the public toilet. I was scared but I didn’t want him to think that I was scared so with a pretentious-courageous expression on my face, I went inside the public toilet and I saw not less than fifty people, men, women, children, all sizes, all shapes, licking the floors and walls and toilet bowls and some were licking each others buttocks. I could not look at them for more than two minutes and I came out and told my assistant to drop me back home. In the following days I tried to get in touch with Dr. Phissures but he was always busy or he pretended to be. I knew that he knew more than anyone else about whatever was happening in Nogichokta. After few days half of the people of Nogichokta died of dysentery, my maid stopped coming to my house because her whole family died and she moved to some other village. It was my nineteenth month in the village and I felt an obligation towards the people of Nogichokta, who gave me respect and love in their own way, I wanted to help them but didn’t know how. By now the whole village was addicted to shit and everyone looked pale and the whole village looked like a living graveyard with that peculiar smell of that unknown flower. I chose to resign from the job and sent my resignation letter to Dr. Phissures. Next day only I received a letter from Dr. Phissures which said ‘You’ll die in shit if you leave the job, I will come and visit Nogichokta after three months from now and then we will talk about your resignation. – Dr. Phissures’. I laughed when I read the letter but then I splashed a lot of water on my face as it scared the shit out of me. For the next three months I did nothing, except whatever I had been doing from the first day in Nogichokta. The number of the people, who were dying, increased and these reports never made it to the mainstream media as everyone has forgotten about the small village which was in the middle of nowhere, Nogichokta Award Winner of the ‘cleanest’ village, dying because of its own shit. In the forth month I got the news of Dr. Phissures death and after few days I received a letter stating that I have been promoted as the head of the ‘No-Smell-No-Stain Sanitation Org.’ and within a week I was expected to join the office which was in the hip ‘Mowmonny’. I smiled and went home and started packing for my new role as the Head of the ‘No-Smell-No-Stain Sanitation Org.’ When I reached Mowmonny I saw my face-pictures on all the business newspapers. Yesterday was my first day in the office as the Head of the ‘No-Smell-No-Stain Sanitation Org.’, which strangely felt the same as the first day in the small gloomy village of Nogichokta as the Sanitary Inspector.

Signed

A.