Bobbing For Porcelain

Under uncertain amounts of ocean, reaching for something unattainable, waiting in that roundabout way. That is to say, I've woken up now. The crux, however, is decidedly more trivial, borne, as it was, from a public lavatory. Here's the mood: the sound of a successful flush had just risen from one of the stalls — to this narrator it was merely an ersatz change-room, I hasten to point out — and a gasp along with it. The former, unremarkable under the circumstances, the latter, somewhat discomforting under the same. But it is for the third sound, roughly four seconds after the second, that I'm here today: "The cistern works!". Suddenly the resentful group of uptights and perverts had common ground. The knowing among us chuckled while the baffled sped up whichever process they were currently involved in and hurried themselves out of there.

When at last the jubilant alien emerged from the miracle chamber, we were rather deflated to discover it was an attendant of sorts, holding a box of tools. The mood instantly retreated to Soiled and Uncomfortable, and every exchanged glance was promptly returned to its rightful owner. Restoring to the harsh but blessedly un-public-toilet-like sunlight of the intervening street, we scattered to from whence we came and hoped passers-by did not notice our re-entry point. For me, the whence was a grossly exaggerated elephant tusk-cum-seat, where my peers were. For the rest, I care not to know.

I'm fairly certain there's a moral here.