Where I work has a foyer outside the office. Probably much like your own. In contrast to the soft carpets and fuzzy partitions of the office itself, the foyer is tiled and sharp and feet tap and clack and the rustling of keys in pockets bounces off the walls. The foyer is the office leveller...everyone stands in the same one while waiting for the lift to come - the girls from accounts you know to look at but never speak to, the project manager you've never dealt with, that programmer that you hear is quite good but you've never worked with. It's the place where you smile and up-nod at the girl whose top you were looking down the month before, breaking the awkward silence with chatter like "almost the weekend, eh?" and "what about the weather, huh?" before you both resume your dead-ahead stance waiting for the lift to finally come and break the social tension.

Our office also has a disabled toilet that some able-bodied people prefer to use when moving their bowels as it offers greater privacy than the cramped stalls of the able-bodied toilet block. Our disabled toilet is in the foyer by the lifts.

Tonight I greeted the people already waiting with up-nods and a group smile while remarking "half-way there tomorrow, eh?" to which some smiled in silent agreement. I rocked on my heels as we all stood in collective silence, waiting for the lift, while billowing from the disabled toilet came the most prolonged, bowl-amplified, wet farts and plop after plop sounds of someone who had seemingly not shat for a whole week. This abominable white elephant was not just standing in the room but positively rampaging through it. The sounds were relentless, never ending as the muffled, screaming rectal excretions bounced around no less quiet than if the person was defecting through a trumpet. HEAVEN TO GOD WHY WON'T THE LIFT COME we must have been collectively screaming inside as Satan himself was screaming just the other side of the disabled toilet door. Moments were hours, heartbeats were lifetimes as the poor person inside had no idea their private performance was actually a concert. A terrible, terrible brown concert where every single attendee was trapped as the tune of the movements battered our very souls.