I zipped up, waited a few seconds, grabbed at some oxygen, sighed and shrugged, then turned to face my interrogator. Expecting something altogether more solid, more muscular I was surprised to see a girl, well, a young woman, who could have been no more than seventeen, overwhelmed inside an oversized uniform, dark, black or possible navy, her waif like face locked in uncertainty was a striking contradiction to the questioning, challenging voice I had been subdued by.
Are you, by any chance, looking for the Kazoo Dreamboat, her voice had mysteriously become dream like, soft.
Perhaps she had a colleague with her, somewhere in the shadows, a senior colleague who was supervising her on her first day in the job.
Kazoo Dreamboat? I wondered about the strange name but decided to press on with my mission to reach the conference on the ninth floor.
I’m trying to reach the ninth floor.
A sheaf of papers had appeared in her left hand. She carefully examined them.
Apparently you must go down to the fish wharf, three floors down.
Erm, I rather was hoping to . . . I need to . . . erm pee. I never did like the word pee, so prissy, so pathetic, but my vocal apparatus had got strangled in the effort to say piss.
Sorry, was all she said and waited for me to leave.