Excellent What happened to the crocodile tears? I Laughed Until I Cried by LisaMay

Warning: The author has noted that this contains the highest level of language. Please read my Author Note first. If I didn’t laugh, I’d cry – and I’d probably never stop. So that is the reason why I don’t let any tears plop. I’ll look dry-eyed and watch as other water gushes, swirls and flushes my crap life down the bowl and out to see what my life could be. Somewhere else. Will I be wrecked on a reef, amidst turds and plastic in an ocean of grief? Or another possibility is that I could be washed to an exotic shore – fed coconuts, limes, lobster... and more. Yes please, I’ll have that option; lobster I adore. In my dreams I’m swimming, in butterfly leaps, to a distant island. But the shape is dimming… it keeps shifting, a fog is swirling, now lifting. I just awoke, on midnight’s stroke, and went to the bathroom in the gloom. I had to smile – there was a crocodile in my dunny. It was very funny. The crocodile grinned right back at me, but they are built like that. What a phoney, pretending to be friendly. But he was lonely.  Then the croc started to cry. I wonder why? His life was crap too, boo hoo, who knew? But of course, it was just a trick, he must have thought that I was thick. You can’t con me with your crocodile tears; I’ve seen it all before – and it leaves us crying into our beers. Then it dawned on me (the moon was blue and he was too), this croc was a symbol of something else instead. I scratched my head. Then I went back to bed. A bit later I got up again, heard the rain on my window pane, too much of that would drive me insane. All that crying, all those tears, quite enough to last for years and years. So I went back to the bathroom and flicked on the light, so I didn’t get a fright. The crocodile was not there. I looked everywhere. Do I dare – sit on the can? Poise my butt over the pan? Am I a brave man? Dan-the-Man is me and now I need to poo and pee. Yes, you guessed it, he bit my arse. He didn’t have any sense of class. (Nor do I, but that’s another matter.) It was getting cold, my teeth began to chatter. I had to make him lose his grip so I reached around to give him a flip. Luckily he was very small but as I started to fall I then farted, and blew him against the wall. He didn’t like that at all. He was angry and he came for me, baring his teeth as you will see. So I grabbed hold of him, though my prospects were dim and the outcome quite grim. We struggled together on the bathroom floor then someone opened the door, and what is more, they slipped in the gore. My bottom was bleeding and what I was needing was a bandage or two and an ambulance crew. But who came to help was the Wildlife Trust, and try as I must I was rebuked for my kick and my thrust to get rid of the beast. They could have at least patched up my blood. My life is still crud. So I am left with a bitten bum and blood on the floor, but what is more, to even the score… I laughed till I cried, and the floodgates inside opened wide. I cried and I cried my saltwater tears, so many of them had banked up for years. The croc and the Trust had numerous fears because he didn’t like salt, so he tried to bolt  and jumped back in the bowl to assume his role. (He was a freshwater croc not a ‘saltie’ jock.) Hah, what a croc of shit! But I bet you laughed – just a little bit?     THE END Author Notes Author's Note: This story is the culmination of 77 years of wisdom - my own 66 years and an 11-yr-old boy's, a young friend I spend a few hours with every Saturday. In the hope of engaging him with writing poetry or stories, today I suggested topics and he decided he would like a crocodile in a poem, imagining that we would only be writing a short piece. This is very much a free-association exercise and certainly not an example of quality writing. I have posted it here so you can see what happens when two people have silly fun together with words and ideas. We sat at the table with cookies and a drink and tossed sentences around to make rhymes. Sometimes we laughed till we choked on the cookies. During this unstructured, spontaneous exercise, we talked to each other and enjoyed each other longer than we ever have before. Thank you, crocodile. You may be able to tell who introduced the toilet humour, but I have to confess I didn't edit him. We didn't bother with metre so the outcome is this story rather than a poem. The 'croc of shit' is my finishing flourish. Don't tell his mother - he might not be allowed to spend time with me again.

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