I wake from a jet-lagged nap and stumble toward the toilet. Too tired to stand, I pee sitting down. As I sit there I think I might try the bidet, a standard accessory with most contemporary Japanese toilets. I can’t see well as I don’t have my glasses on and the command panel down at seat level on my left is squeezed between the sink and the toilet.

With a little wiggling I soon have the spray of warm water right on target. Once I’ve had enough of this sort of hydro-hygiene, I push what I think is the OFF button. I wait a minute, giving the toilet some time to wind down, but the spray is still spot on. I push the next button along the panel and wait. After a while I notice a change in the water temperature—warmer, but not uncomfortably hot. I push the next button, several times; the spray is now hitting the bull’s eye with growing force. In panic mode I begin to push all the buttons. I’m starting to feel a little more wrinkled than usual down there.

In desperation I leap from the seat and slam down the lid. The toilet gives a sigh of relief before it stops spraying and gently flushes itself.

empty seat
at a three-stool bar
I plop myself
down in the middle
of a conversation

Bob Lucky

Regular contributor to haiku and tanka journals in the US, Europe, and Australia, whose work has been widely anthologized. His works in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry have appeared or are forthcoming in numerous international journals, including Flash, Rattle, Modern Haiku, The Prose-Poem Project, The Boston Literary Magazine, Haibun Today, KYSO Flash, and Contemporary Haibun Online (where he edits content).

Lucky’s chapbook of haibun, tanka prose, and prose poems entitled Ethiopian Time is forthcoming from Red Bird Chapbooks. He now lives and works in Saudi Arabia.

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡ Some Notes on Paradise, from Lucky’s chapbook Ethiopian Time