There’s that thing some fellow said about leading horses to water. This particular afternoon at work I had just discovered that attention spans were quite similar to horses in their reluctance to drink. The general environment wasn’t helping either. For a start: Whoever came up with open-plan office layouts - I’d bet he was the sort of enthu-cutlet whose idea of a quiet afternoon is to be the only dinosaur in the Smithsonian when schoolchildren visit.

That being the state of affairs, I gave up and looked for an unoccupied room to turn the brain off and perhaps sell my soul to my phone for a while. A few minutes later I had wisely lowered my expectations and was now on the lookout for an empty cosy niche. One more knock of harsh reality later, I consoled myself that even a quiet corner would do, if I could find one that the coat-racks hadn’t claimed for themselves. As it turned out, half the office had embarked on the same quest half an hour ago, and had met with better success. Soon enough I was dreaming of tortoises, tents, human-sized cardboard boxes with a hole to peer out of, camper-vans and so forth. Finally I set out to dawdle a bit in one of the things that weren’t in that list: The men’s.

Before you gentlefolk recoil at the thought, let me point out that it’s a rather convenient getaway - a brisk walk from my desk. And besides transacting the sort of business all dignified people transact while in there, it also doubles up as a space for catching up on some casual reading and a few scrolls down twitter. Not to mention some peace and quiet, but only if you’re lucky (we’ll get to that in a moment).

“That’s all very well, but-“, some of you begin, as the thought dawns. Yes, unfortunately (thanks to the rather chummy design of the American restrooms) one also ends up doing a bit of unintentional people-watching and being an unwilling audience for their little afternoon soliloquies. Which should sound amusing, except that the ‘people’ here are mostly their shoes, and the soliloquies tend to be of a metabolic nature, of the exiting variety. So while I was looking forward to a bit of quiet time on the hilltop, I braced myself for some inevitable visitors in the adjacent stall, and fervently prayed I wouldn’t recognise a shoe or a cough.

I had scarcely scrolled past a few sponsored tweets and noticed a few familiar handles when I heard the next door open, and two muddy shoes walked in.

Old muddy shoes was evidently a man in little hurry, and one of fewer words. His sermon, which I seemed to be the sole unwitting audience to, was characterised by measured sentences and an occasional staccato or two. Cultured, but singularly effective in derailing my trains of thought. While he occupied himself thus, his phone chimed in with a few understanding words.

An able man, I thought to myself. For the common-folk don’t deal with that sort of stuff on the pulpit. Conversations, I mean. The room is for relief, and relief hardly comes in the form of active interpersonal dialogue – the likes of which you’ve just dodged to get there in the first place. I despatched a disapproving scowl in the direction of the adjacent stall and carried on.

A few phone notifications later, M. Shoes decided that he had had enough soliloquising, and having probably arrived at the analogy to the serpent’s egg by now (which, hatched, would as its kind grow mischievous no doubt), the shoes made up their mind and proceeded to exeunt stage right.

All was still again, and I entertained myself editing a picture of a window or some such. But not for long.

The figure that walked in minutes later was obviously a man in great grief. The two Adidases had scarcely performed their about-turn and become stationary, when a complaint of a most gut-wrenchingly sincere nature issued forth from behind the partition. So hurried, in fact, that the speaker seemed to be falling over his words while giving vent to what had been bottled up since, presumably, lunchtime. The oratory marched unceasingly forward for a few scrollsworth of my twitter feed, punctuated frequently with exasperated breaths of emotion, before finally winding up with a whine and squeak.

Agitated Adidas let out a sigh. By this time I had made my way past a few White House updates and was beginning to feel sorry for the man. There’s this progression of emotions you wade your way through in one of these situations - when a chap extemporises so passionately from atop the bog. The first is one of polite disgust at such crass and unrestrained statements being made publicly from behind what are, even to the untrained eye, thin and uninsulating walls. A moment later you start to see the joke in the whole thing, and struggle to stay quiet amidst such fluid verbosity. Soon enough, however, your heart goes out to such effusive articulation. At this point it’s just sympathy for a fellow human, for anyone could’ve walked into the dodgy looking lunch place in the corner of the neighbourhood. It’s all easy to be wise in hindsight, like they say.

This was all the drama I could (if you will excuse the inappropriate verb) stomach. Dispensing with the usual rituals, it was desk-ward ho.

Walking back, I passed someone blue in the face but with the glow of one who had just sent a will-work-from-home-rest-of-the-day email. I resisted looking at their shoes.