Privy

The village did not have plumbing in every household.

That was a luxury East would not know until he was already a man. They had pits instead, with boards over it and a hole cut out on the flooring in every stall for those at school. Each village had a set of its own, and it is a daily occurrence to visit the privy once before sunset.

During one summer East stole a cube from a fisherman’s ice box and rolled the cool slippery piece over his tongue. He grew sick from the piece, finding himself in the privy often, and never growing any bigger though he ate his fair share at the dinner table. Not one to despair, he sang himself the anthem while he squatted.

East wouldn’t know it till he was older, that there were parasites growing in his body during this time, and only when the school prescribed medication was he able to expel the intruders. He found that the large student body had been plagued with similar ills, as the the following days, long carcass could be found in the privy pits.