Leaving work, I opened the door to the men’s room to a loud hissing sound and dense humidity. The light had also come on, the light that shuts off after 15 or so minutes of nobody opening the door. All this occurring to me in under a second, I realized that somebody was using the shower — yes there’s a shower in the men’s room at work.

Rather than use the only urinal, which is immediately next to the shower and might make the showerer uncomfortable, I went for the furthest of two stalls. In the toilet was what looked like the unflushable remnants of vomit. So, my mind is working on this — somebody threw up, and that person is now, maybe, washing a shirt? their face? in the shower. That’s fine.

As I’m peeing I realize that the shushing of the shower is very even, not the slightest aberration you’d expect from somebody rinsing shampoo from their hair or whatever. Nobody clearing their throat. And no comment about my having activated the lights, which anybody in there would have at least made a joke about to break the ice.

I’m peeking slightly over the top of the stall to see if I can catch a glimpse of something, but there’s no sign of anything. Now I’m thinking, which makes more sense: that somebody left the shower on full blast and full heat, then walked away? Or that somebody is unconscious on the tile floor?

I leave the stall and go to wash my hands, intending to find out as discreetly as possible whether there’s someone in there. As I walk towards the sink I notice a couple things. First is the Breath Savers wrapper in one of the sinks, sitting in a pool of pink hand soap. Second is the streamer of paper towel strewn on the floor, and another length of it bunched up clumsily in the small trash can (not visible). One of the sinks has also been left running. “This is really weird.”

After washing my hands I glance quickly through the opening in the shower curtain, and, as far as I can tell, there’s no one there. My eyes linger, and sure enough, not a soul. I part the curtain, step into the dry half of the shower. I notice that there’s an unopened roll of toilet paper, sitting upright on top of the drain, drenched in steaming hot water.

So, somebody was here, somebody in a bad way. I go into the hall, which is very small, and look around — nobody. I go back inside and turn the shower off, clean up. So, where did they go, and what exactly happened here?

I checked the whole stairwell and the second story bathroom too. But what did I really expect, that somebody after throwing up in the bathroom and turning on the shower for whatever reason would be so delirious that they would climb, foaming, up to the roof of the building, only to collapse in the corner?

And those breath mints, that really stole the show. I can’t imagine a person who’s in bad enough shape to leave the shower on and paper towels everywhere could be helped very much by munching on a fistful of breath mints.

Anyway that’s pretty weird huh?