Herbs

When I was 15 and going to the bathroom, my father kept casually hovering near the restroom, asking, "Why are you so quiet? Why can't I hear you?" The first time I didn't answer, he started pounding on the door and yelling, "What's wrong with you? What's wrong?" He started swearing (he never held back) and saying he'd tear the door off its hinges. I was, of course, shocked by such inappropriate behavior.

One day, I was sitting on the toilet and heard my father stand up somewhere near the door and go quiet. Suspecting something was wrong, I leaned forward, and there was a very wide gap at the bottom of the door. I looked through the gap, and there was my father, on all fours, peering through the crack. Noticing me looking at him, he started again, "What's wrong? Are you nuts? What's taking you so long?!"

 My father, by the way, was always buying some kind of herbs and filled the bathroom with these little packets, creating a distinctive, dizzying aroma. He himself would lock himself in the bathroom for long periods of time, five times a day. When I asked him why he needed these herbs, he said they helped with an upset stomach. I began to seriously fear for his mental health, but my mother seemed oblivious to these oddities.

One day, when my father wasn't home, I was sitting on the toilet, leafing through a magazine like "Murzilka," which we always kept on the bathroom floor. The apartment was quiet, and I could clearly hear the sound of water running through the pipes. But after a couple of minutes, I suddenly heard another sound join this quiet trickle. I began to listen intently, without looking up from my reading. It sounded most like something was moving through the pipe that ran along the wall at floor level: I heard something like a rustling or swishing sound, clearly moving along the pipe toward the toilet.

At first, I didn't pay much attention, but when the strange sound came very close to the toilet, I became uneasy. Putting the magazine down on the floor, I became all ears. There was no way I was imagining the sound: whatever was in the pipe, the rustling became louder as it approached me. And when the source of the sound began to move from the pipe to the base of the toilet, I heard a sharp sound, like someone scraping a knife blade across porcelain. The sound came almost directly beneath me and hit me like a slap: I jumped up in a fit of instant panic, ran away from the toilet, and turned around...

I still don't know if it was just a figment of my terrified mind or reality, but I clearly remember seeing something in the toilet. Something greenish, slimy, and shiny like a lizard's tail, sticking out of the drain. If I had remained sitting on the toilet, it would certainly have touched my soft spot. I saw it for only a second, then it darted back into the drain, like a disappointed hunter realizing its prey had escaped. The metallic clanking sound came again, followed by the familiar rustling sound—this time it was retreating back down the drain.

For several days after that, I was afraid to sit on the toilet in the apartment, and tried to relieve myself only at school. At first, I didn't tell anyone about this incident, but one evening, when my father came out of the bathroom after a long stint, reeking of herbs, I couldn't resist asking:

"Dad, did you hear something crawling down the drain?"

And I immediately regretted asking: my father looked at me with completely wild eyes and grabbed my shoulder.

"Did you see it? Did it do something to you? Answer me!"

"No, I just heard a sound, like there was something in the drain," I hastened to reply.

"Idiot, I told you not to sit on the toilet for so long!" my father cursed loudly. Realizing the conversation was over, I started to retreat to my room, but then he added after me:

"Don't worry, son. Just a couple more days, and it won't bother anyone again. I'll kick it the hell out of our house, just don't bother me." 

That's basically the whole story. I never heard the rustling sound in the pipe again, nor did I ever see that slimy creature again. The herbs soon disappeared from the toilet, and my father stopped knocking and interfering with the natural process. I don't know what was going on there, what those herbs were for, or how exactly my father "exorcised" that monster by locking himself in the room. But it seems it really worked.

P.S. My father died of a stroke when I was twenty, so I can't ask him now. As for my mother, it seems she knew about my father's affairs (maybe she even saw that creature), but we have a strained relationship now, and we live in different cities, so we can't talk.