Urine Blues

It was so... odd.

Typically you don’t find urine test bottles scattered around London. Hypodermic needles? Rubber bands and latex gloves? Of course but you can typically hazard a guess at what those are used for. But even then, you’d be hard-pressed to explain the radioactive blue liquid that currently resided in the bottle.

Initially hesitant, my curiosity drew me closer; obviously with the appropriate amount of caution. At first, I assumed it was some sports drink, situated as it was close to university hospital, and that it was some drunk asshole without respect for medical funding doing shooters out of a piss cup. However, that notion was quickly dissuaded by the milky substrate that lined the bottom of the container.

I crouched further but immediately caught the smell. It was piss, no question about it, the acrid stale smell shot up into my nose curling the hairs as it dried out my nostrils. I gasped at the noxious fumes and reeled back with an immediate wave of nausea. Coughing profusely I retreated to a safe distance; the bottle seemed sealed from a distance.

“What are you doing?” At that moment my brother finally arrived.

“Oh.. a ” I wrinkled my nose trying to get the smell to leave “Blue piss bottle...”

“Oh yeah?” My brother briefly looked at the bottle “Huh? Neat”

“Sis coming soon?”

“She caught traffic on the way up, did you not check your phone?”

“I forgot to charge it”

“Dumbass”

“Fuck you.” We laughed briefly.

“She’ll meet us there... we should go.” He clapped me on the shoulder, leaving a small half-smile presented on his lips and a tired sadness in his eyes.

“Yea, yea we should.” I had forgotten briefly why we were there. For the first time since I had started waiting, I turned back across the road and up the hill to the sullen purpose of our trip; the hospice center perched atop a grassy slope of vibrant green grass. Five years ago to this day, our family had gathered to be present for the passing of my grandmother...

Up the slope my brother and met the larger grouping; our mother and father alongside various aunts and uncles rested comfortably in a picnic area on the outskirts of the facility, with plates of gingerbeer and frozen molasses cookies resting untouched in a cooler to the sides.

I didn’t speak but instead sat stooped in turgid silence as members of the family took it in turns to recount fond memories of my Grandmother.

It felt the same to me as when she had passed, the same nameless anxiety filled in the same way it had; all while the same healing energy seemed to flow from person to person. Like back then, I had to leave, I had to let them process and heal and remember in their own way.

Walking to the hill I pulled out a small textured metal tube, which I rubbed slowly between my thumb and forefinger in a vain attempt to placate my racing mind. However, what I soon spotted, near where I had been waiting, was my sister slowly making her way across the parking lot.

Unfortunately for her, after having already been delayed by traffic, it looked like the area had been blocked off. Men in landscaping uniforms crowded around the area, ushering her in a wide berth around where I had met my brother, forcing her to take the long way to the hospice center. Curiously didn’t they seem to actually have any landscaping equipment and what I had assumed to be a long pair of pruning sheers seemed more like a tool for grabbing.

Sufficiently distracted, I returned to the group.

Later, as I started on my way home I passed by where the bottle was, but it was gone. And in its place, there was a perfect 5ft square of white powder; Exhausted I didn’t even stop to question it, and hurried home to bed. I was exhausted.

However, once home I was to mess with my laptop, slinking occasionally to the fridge to grab an increasingly aggressive amount of diet soda; this went on until early in the morning when, sweaty and eyes blearing, I closed the computer down and veered over to the bathroom. A wave of nausea had slowly been building and I was ready to pass out. Unzipping my pants I made to relieve myself, closing my eyes as the diet soda completed its journey through my body. With hazy eyes, I looked down to flush the toilet, but was confused, what waited for me in the bowl was not the deep ochre yellow of a night of binge dehydration, but a vibrant teal blue, almost pulsing along with nausea in my stomach.

I blinked hard, even wiping my eyes against the crook of my arm; but still, the colour didn’t change. Delirious I washed my hands, not even bothering to flush. Instead, I threw myself into bed without even a moment to remove my pants.

When I awoke a pungent smell swirled around the room, heavy in the air like smoke in a house fire. My lips felt dry to the touch, my throat emanated a dry heat. I stumbled to the bathroom and shot my head under the tap, lapping up that glorious, opulent water with the vigour and energy of a dog with a hose.

Between gasps of air, I drank, gathering that ever-present putrid stink before washing it down into my stomach - which swelled with each desperate gulp.

Eventually, I had to stop drinking; my thirst was far from stated but there was no more room for it. Finally, with bleary dazed vision, I turned to look at my leavings from last night.

Deep in the bowl was a deep cerulean blue, lined around by a crystalline structure creeping up towards the rim. It had evaporated throughout the night, the vapours of which surely were creating that abhorrent energy. Without thinking I flushed it away, the crystals dissolving back like sugar in hot water. But the smell still lingered, and remained fixed in my mind.

A soft headache had begun to creep in from the base of my spine, quickly expediting to the recess of my mind...

I was so thirsty,

I needed to go to the hospital,

but first... I had to pee.

In the short time before I left, after calling into work, I had peed three more times, each time far greater than the volume of water I could siphon into my stomach before pain set in. At this point, a chill had set in and so I wrapped myself up as much as I could before embarking on my journey.

Immediately I regretted it, as the urge to pee returned rapidly and with a vengeance. And my rapping