The crew broke for lunch and ate their sandwiches on the lawn of the cemetery construction site where they had just started work. Earl had to pee, and he noticed a Porta-Potty that had appeared since he parked his truck nearby that morning. Plastic, green, the usual. He entered and closed the door

The four workers talked the talk until they heard screams. They were coming from the Porta-Potty. Fire broke from around the door. Smoke rolled through the vent screen at the top. When it stopped, the screaming stopped.

“I ain’t going to look,” the foreman said. “Hemorrhoids?”

15 minutes later, when the lunch break was over, Earl still hadn’t come out. One of the men knocked on the plastic door.

“Hey, Earl, time to get back to that wall form.”

No answer.

He slowly opened the door, the others gathered around watching. Earl was not on the toilet. The Porta-Potty, in fact, was empty, except for Earl’s clothes. They were piled around the toilet.

That afternoon, as the men worked building those wall forms, Earl still hadn’t shown up. The crew was constructing a mausoleum. Police arrived at around three, but there was no sign of anything. They even made jokes.

“Maybe he flushed himself to death,” one said.

Late afternoon came and Manuel had to go so bad he couldn’t stand it. He decided to take a chance and walked to the Porta-Potty.

“Better not, dude,” the foreman said. “That thing is weird.”

“I gotta go,” Manuel said. “Earl’s probably home watching TV.”

He entered the Porta-Potty, closed the door, dropped his pants, and sat. A grinning face appeared before him, blonde hair, fat cheeks, and broken teeth. The face broke out in a frown.

The men had stopped their work to watch the green toilet. Manuel cursed in Spanish, “Chingou!” The same fire around the door and smoke out the top vent. The Porta-Potty shook.

The foreman called the police again.

This time, they were more serious. One opened the door carefully. Inside was empty, just like with Earl. Manuel’s clothes also were heaped in a pile.

“You men are making fun of us,” the policeman said. “We need to issue you a ticket.”

“Honest, officer,” the foreman represented the others. “Two men have disappeared in that thing.”

“Uh-huh,” he said. “Don’t call a third time. This is a warning.”

Next morning, the Porta-Potty was still there when the men reported for work. Fog whitened the tombstones. The mausoleum was being framed. The foreman had checked with the office and no Porta-Potty had been ordered.

“Oh hell, this is stupid,” Kenny said. He was the youngest and the biggest-muscled. He hadn’t been at work the day before. He was dressed in an undershirt which revealed tattoos up and down his arms. “I’m going to pee and show you little girls how stupid this whole thing is.”

“Better not,” a laborer said.

“Stupid,” Kenny said. He opened the door and stepped inside. He closed it.

The young man stood to pee. A little girl with blonde curls floated in front of him. She was all white except for her right eye, which was filled with blood.

Ten seconds later came the screams, and the fire, and the smoke. The Porta-Potty glowed red.

Two of the men started running away. The other two stared at the green plastic shack.

The Porta-Potty began shaking. The thing roared. Flames came from the bottom. The box lifted off the ground and slowly rose into the sky. 15 minutes later, the toilet disappeared into the clouds. The cemetery returned to silence.

“Maybe the dead didn’t like the noise we were making,” a carpenter said. “The sawing and hammering. Maybe they just wanted peace.”

“Maybe,” the foreman said, turning his back on where the Porta-Potty had been. “Who knows? Who will ever know? Let’s get back to work.”