Pissende Wedstrijd. (Pissing Contest.)

Meeting Room 42 on Level 7 in the United Nations Secretariat Building in New York may have seemed an unlikely place for World War 3 to break out, but as she looked on from the head of the table, that’s exactly what it looked like to Dutch diplomat and chairperson Dafne van Langen.

She tapped her gavel on the table. “Gentlemen, please!”

The shouting continued.

She rapped the table harder. “GENTLEMEN! Shut up!”

The U.S. delegation on her left and the People’s Republic of China delegation on her right fell silent. The smell of stale filter coffee and testosterone hung in the air.

“And sit!” she added.

Former U.S. general and now senior diplomat Dickie Johnson started to sit but stopped when he noticed his baby-faced counterpart, Han Wang, wasn’t.

“Sit!” Ms van Langen raised her gavel in warning.

Both men sat, reluctantly, followed by their assistants and assistant assistants. Johnson jutted his square jaw. Diplomat Wang sneered beneath his thin-rimmed glasses.

“I suggest we take a five-minute break,” said Ms van Langen, “then return to the issue in hand.”

The issue in hand – in hand for over three hours – was a preliminary meeting about a provisional agreement to confirm exploratory talks about a framework for negotiations to agree the conditions for a multilateral summit addressing disputed rights of passage in the South China Sea.

After 186 minutes and 37 cups of coffee, the delegations had agreed the title for the communique for their meeting. Not the content. Just the title. All but one word.

The word being disputed? The word ‘disputed’.

“Fine,” said Johnson, slumping in his chair, a throbbing vein threatening to burst from his sweat-beaded temple. “Where’s the restroom?”

“There’s a small unisex restroom across the hall,” Ms van Langen said calmly. “And another some way down the hall.”

A moment of quiet followed. Johnson looked at the army of now-empty coffee cups scattered across the table like pawns on a chessboard. Wang looked at the flotilla of half-empty water bottles dotted about like so many rooks, knights and bishops. The men’s eyes met.

In an instant, the former general was on his feet and heading for the door with surprising alacrity for such a heavy-set middle-aged man. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw Wang on his feet and hustling after him.

“Geef me kracht,” Ms van Langen said to herself as she watched the men jostle across the hall and into the restroom.

Inside, the men pulled up in front of the doors to two cubicles. One had a door-sized sign taped to it that said ‘Out of order’ in 25 languages. The other was closed. ‘Engaged’ the lock told them.

Johnson and Wang simultaneously took a step towards the locked door and waited, eyeing the door and each other.

Moments later, the toilet behind the locked door flushed, the lock flipped to ‘Vacant’ and the door opened to reveal German diplomat Heike Schmidt, momentarily startled by her U.S. and Chinese peers.

“Johnson,” she said, nodding uncertainly at the former general. “Wang,” she said, nodding to the other man.

She walked between them to the washbasin and washed her hands.

“I got here first, buddy,” Johnson said, moving towards the empty stall.

“Did not!” Wang said, grabbing Johnson’s shoulder.

Frau Schmidt dried her hands and edged her way to the exit.

“You can’t come in here throwing your weight around,” the general said, looking down on his diminutive counterpart.

“My weight?!” said the Chinese official, looking pointedly at Johnson’s paunch.

Frau Schmidt opened the door to find Russian diplomat Alexandr Shubenkov reaching to open it.

“Arschlöcher,” Frau Schmidt muttered to the Russian as she left. Shubenkov sauntered in with a grin and a wink to both Johnson and Wang.

“I’m. Going. First,” Johnson said, jabbing his finger into Wang’s chest to punctuate each word.

Before Wang could reply, Shubenkov stepped between them. “Now, gentlemen,” he purred with a disarming smile. “We’re all fully grown diplomats. Let’s talk this out.”

The U.S. and Chinese diplomats launched into their respective arguments for using the toilet first.

“OK, OK!” said Shubenkov, patting the air to hush the men. He reached into his pocket and brought out a dollar coin, which he waved in front of the American and Chinese combatants with a street magician’s flourish. “Heads, Johnson goes first. Tails, Wang. OK?”

The men looked at each other and nodded.

Shubenkov tossed the coin but fumbled his catch. They all watched as it hit the floor and rolled into the empty stall.

Johnson and Wang looked from the coin to Shubenkov. “Hold on,” he said as he stepped forward and picked up the coin. Turning to face them, coin in his palm and smile on his lips, he cried “Ha!”, then slammed the door shut and turned the lock.

Johnson and Wang regarded the closed door in stunned silence.

The restroom door opened again and Ms van Langen poked her head in. “That’s five minutes, gentlemen,” she said, holding the door open for them, “Shall we?”

Johnson and Wang looked longingly at the locked cubicle.

“Ha!” Shubenkov cried again from behind the door.

Back in Meeting Room 42, Ms van Langen said, “While you were in the restroom, we…” she gestured at the juniors assembled around the table, “…put our heads together. We think we’ve resolved the disputed ‘disputed’ in the title of our communique.”

She slid a sheet of paper to Johnson and another to Wang. Both peered doubtfully at the amended title. The assistants, assistant assistants and Ms van Langen waited in hopeful anticipation as the senior diplomats weighed up the new title.

Finally, Johnson said to Ms van Langen, “We can live with that.”

Everyone turned to Wang. “We find this agreeable.”

The room exhaled a sigh of relief. Smiles were exchanged. Pats on the back were given.

“Excellent!” Ms van Langen sighed. “Now,” she said pushing a form into the centre of the table, “who would like to sign off on the new title first?”

Prompts
Genre: Political satire
Location: A restroom
Object: A gavel