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This is a large building,
in which a computer lab can go largely unnoticed
until one's junior year,
and a bathroom can hide impressively well
behind a vending machine outcropping.
There are many other bathrooms to be found.
But none like this.
You enter,
go down a short hallway,
and turn left to see the stalls.
Another left
will give you sinks and mirrors.
You may notice that the first stall has no door.
Or you may enter it and turn around,
reaching to close it,
only to find emptiness
and an amused face or two.
At this point you will think that
the bathroom has nothing more interesting to offer.
You will be wrong.
When you approach that entrance hallway
from the other direction,
you will see something interesting.
There is a doorway
in that wall
as far from the rest of the bathroom as it is possible to be.
You see what could be a chair in the dark room.
You hesitate in the doorway,
looking into dimness,
and are astonished by what you find.
There is a light switch; perhaps you make use of it.
Perhaps you don't.
Even without it, you can see
a very curious place,
with linoleum floor instead of tile,
two comfortable chairs,
and,
entirely out of sight of the bathroom,
a couch.
It is the kind of thing a psychiatrist might have.
Nothing you've ever seen
in a bathroom before.
If there are other people around,
or there is somewhere you need to be,
you will step back out
and resume your walk down the hallway.
Even if there is no one around and nothing to do,
you will feel daunted.
You won't immediately make yourself comfortable
on the soft chairs
or the long couch;
it is too strange.
Like a character in a fairytale who,
wandering in a forest,
comes upon an unattended banquet
laid out on a table-shaped stone...
you are wary.
It doesn't belong there.
So you back up
and pass on
and think about it for the rest of the day.
And maybe later...
...you will come back.
To the hidden bathroom that most people don't notice,
down the hall,
turning right instead of left.
You may return, on purpose,
and spend hours doing homework on that couch,
as I have.
It is very comfortable.
No one notices me.
I lie there with my book, with the light switch untouched,
reading by the light from the main room.
And smiling
every time someone walks past without looking in.
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