Logging - Nick Spalding Page 0,7

The artwork for your augum winner zelecshun!’

Pikky stands up. ‘I think it might be a good idea if we ended this here.’ He looks down at Winery. ‘I think Miss Smalls is getting a little perturbed.’

I look at Winery, and have to do a double take as I realise that she’s crying like a busted fountain. Her make-up is now smeared down her cheeks. How anyone can lurch between emotional states like that is beyond me.

‘I’ge sorry!’ I wail. ‘If I gan jus’ ’ave a vew migits, I can gum gack and figgig!’

Now I’m speaking in a completely different language. There’s every chance Winery Smalls thinks I’m trying to raise some evil spirit from the depths to come and eat her shower curtain.

‘Please stop!’ she wails, burying her head in Tex’s shoulder.

Tex, for his part, looks entirely bored to tears by proceedings. But then I guess if you’re a twenty-something Lancashire cowboy with a fake moustache, there’s probably very little in this world that can faze you.

Oh God . . . It’s all gone wrong! It’s all gone so horribly wrong!

My stomach, which has been periodically making its presence felt all day with the occasional nervous flip, now rolls over like a tidal wave crashing on to the shoreline.

‘Oh Gesus!’ I remark in horror as I clutch my stomach.

Pikky walks towards me, arms outstretched. ‘Are you all right, Mr Bellows?’

I’ve become Mr Bellows now. Not Andy any more. It’s a sure sign I’m not getting anywhere near that contract.

‘’Es. ’Ike I said, I’ge agsoluley fine!’

Except the sudden need I have for the toilet.

Any toilet.

NOW.

‘’Air’s your toilet?’ I cry in desperation, through my still-locked jaw.

Pikky, showing a remarkable level of foresight and self-preservation, steps back a bit. ‘It’s across the office floor, over there,’ he tells me, pointing at the door that leads away from the touch zone.

It certainly is a touch zone, now.

People come in here to touch cloth all the time, and that’s definitely what I’m currently doing.

‘Dank you!’ I wail, and scuttle off as fast as I possibly can towards the toilet.

As I hurry past all of the Fluidity staff, holding on to my bottom for dear life, I feel tears of frustration and horror in my eyes. This meeting could not have gone any worse if I’d simply introduced myself, squatted down in front of every single Generation Zedder in here, and relieved myself all over their latest summer collection.

The toilets (unisex, just to add to the misery) are pretty much where Pikky promised, and there’s fortunately no one in them as I barrel through the door.

Gratefully, I just make it to the cubicle before the world falls out of my bottom. And when it does, it’s incredibly painful and extremely unpleasant.

For a few minutes I can’t think about anything other than the obvious destruction being wrought upon my backside. It’s horrific. My poor anus has never done anything to deserve this kind of treatment.

Quite why my bowels would feel the need to put it through such a trauma is beyond me. You’d think they’d want to work together to make life as easy as possible, but – as I’ve said before – my bowels are contrary bastards, and smooth cooperation with the other facets of my digestive system are not their priority.

Having said that, nothing like this has ever happened to me before. Sure, the irritable bowel syndrome has always caused me a bit of grief and discomfort, but I’ve never had to rush to the toilet like this. Especially not when I’ve been bunged up like the M25 at rush hour a mere hour or so earlier.

This is new, horrible and not a little worrying. Especially the awful pain.

. . . Which has turned into an unpleasant throbbing now the worst of it is over.

I think – I hope – that I’ve managed to evacuate everything I need to. I’m sure my anus is hoping the same thing, given that it’s been through an assault upon its person that it may never recover from. Not without many, many soothing creams and a long bath.

Gingerly, I wipe myself and slowly stand up. For a moment my legs don’t want to support me, but eventually I get them to behave. I pull up my jeans, flush the loo and wash my shaking hands in the basin just outside the cubicle.

Taking several deep breaths, I steady myself internally by the door to the toilet. All I want to do now is gather up my belongings and get out