MONDAY

FADE IN:
INT: QUIET OFFICE – DAY

Group of 12 office workers sit silently at their computers, most with headphones in; One yawns loudly; One plays on their phone.

DISSOLVE TO:

INT: WORK KITCHEN SPACE – DAY

NARRATOR V.O
It’s Monday morning and the office, like its inhabitants, wake up to a brand new working week, still cold and creaky from the weekend just passed. In the small dimly lit work kitchen a Nespresso machine is hard at work. 

A thin stream of coffee is being extracted – splashing into a shallow bubbly pit at the bottom of a mug. 

NARRATOR V.O (Cont’d)
J, part-time coffee connoisseur pretends to not be worried about the crema on her crappy Nespresso coffee as a figure walks into the otherwise deserted kitchen. 

Initially holding her coffee mug at a tilt under the coffee machine – embarrassed she hastily drops it to sit flat under the machine, as the unknown person enters.

NARRATOR V.O (Cont’d)
MARVIN, English colleague who’s a lot more posh than he believes himself to be is suffering from Mondayitis. 

Sliding past behind J, he pays absolutely no attention to what he or J is doing.

[pause]

As he stands next to her, eye contact is made prompting a conversation.

J
Oh hey, how are you?

MARVIN
(huffy/exhausted) Yeah I’m right thanks. You right?

J
Yeah, I’m great 

NARRATOR V.O (Cont’d)
Sensing Marvin’s tired state, J reverts to her own silent state of tiredness, not wanting to disturb the peace with small talk.

[silence]

Both J and Marvin continue with their morning coffee preparation. 

NARRATOR V.O (Cont’d)
J glances in Marvin’s direction, trying to gauge if he’s willing to talk about his weekend. Marvin makes no action to chat until… he does —

MARVIN
(whilst opening a cupboard to grab a cup)
So I hear you’ve moved house?

J
(re-animated by the initiated conversation)
Oh yeah I did. Just last week actually.

MARVIN
Oh yeah? How are you finding it?

J
Yeah I’m really liking it. The area is pretty cool. Heaps of things to do

MARVIN
Yeah?! I actually used to live really close to there. Where about are you?

J
I live on Mill Lane (?). Do you know where that is?

MARVIN
Yeah, I literally used to drive up that road every day to school, for what (pauses to think) like 20 years (?)

J
Oh no way. Where abouts did you go to school?

MARVIN
In Hampstead, so you know on that road, if you keep driving down towards Hampstead, and then up the hill? There.

NARRATOR V.O (Cont’d)
J has absolutely no idea

J
Ahh I see. Cool! Well yeah, I really like my new place too. It’s cool. It’s even got its own rooftop.

[beat]
MARVIN
Oh what? It’s got a —

J
Yeah it’s got a deck up on the roof that you can climb up to. So it’ll be perfect for when there’s sun. If there’s ever sun. *laughs*

[beat]
MARVIN
Oh no way. That’s awesome!

NARRATOR V.O (cont’d)
It dawns on J, that posh man Marvin may just be pretending to find her conversation about a crappy roof interesting. Who knows what kind of fancy living situation he’s got going on. He might even have a giant mansion all to himself. The conversation comes to a natural lull.

The milk frother machine which has been churning and steaming away this whole time with no milk coming out, starts to let off a serious amount of steam. 

NARRATOR V.O (cont’d)
Still no milk.

J
(gesturing at the milk frother machine)
What the hell is this thing doing? 

MARVIN
Oh do you know if there’s any milk in there?

J
Oh crap, I didn’t think to check. Ahhhhm.

MARVIN
(gesturing at the vat in the front of the machine)
The milk goes in this doesn’t it?

J
Yeah but it’d be really hot right now with all that steam. I’ll just use a bit of cold milk instead.

Marvin still goes to open up the steaming hot vat of milk. 

J
Nah don’t worry about it. It’ll be really hot. Don’t burn yourself.

J reaches down below the bench for the fridge door to grab some cold milk for her coffee. 

MARVIN
(stopping mid reach)
Oh yeah right. Well I guess I’ll just go with black coffee. Much safer. *laughs*

NARRATOR V.O (Cont’d)
Marvin being the resident office health freak had in fact already planned to not have milk

J
Oh yeah *laughs*. Better than burning mysel–

Realising that Marvin has already scooted on out of the kitchen, J pours some cold milk into her coffee and puts the milk back in the fridge. She pauses.

NARRATOR V.O (Cont’d)
Another successful interaction with a man, J thinks to herself.

FADE TO: BLACK

 

so, die banane

my unspoken promise to a brown banana

I had created an unhealthy attachment to this one banana. It was partly a combination of guilt for the banana itself – not wanting it to feel like it had been abandoned. Guilt too for not wanting to waste food, but also in large part my stubbornness in recognising I would soon need a banana and knowing full well that I would not buy any new ones when I have a perfectly ripe one sitting in my cupboard. In summary, I needed to make my hard earned 20p work for itself.

The love affair began approximately one and a half weeks prior to this very day. Weekends are my time to mosey about in the mornings and indulge in a warm and cozy bowl of porridge with a little cinnamon, honey and of course a chopped up banana. I had spotted a firm yellow bunch of five during my weekly supermarket shop and decided: “I must have you”. I unashamedly took them home with me that night. No dinner date first. No promise of a complimentary taxi ride home afterwards.

The first two were snapped up quickly, used as one of the main stars of a fresh fruit salad a day later. The other two were plucked away and whisked to my place of work to serve as a post-mid-morning-tea-but-pre-late-morning-snack.

And so, there that one banana sat. Alone in a dark cupboard, next to the diminishing pile of clementines and packet of pita bread. How could I possibly be so callous as to say: “It’s not you, it’s me. I’m sorry, there were others… I’ve already reached my banana quota for the day”? I could barely look her in the eye.

Over the course of the next few days, in my peripheral vision, I could see how she was being ravished by the effects of time. Her once youthfully firm, dewy complexion, was becoming littered with age spots, wrinkles and deeply furrowed lines. In my mind, I pledged: ‘One day soon, my love. You will see the inside of that porridge bowl, just a few more days, the weekend is almost upon us’. By the fifth day, she looked as though she would not make it. I made arrangements and had her transferred to the refrigerator hospice and urged her to keep fighting. To her testament, she did. But it was all I could do to keep the smell of death from her. I could no longer bring myself to meet her gaze. Her sticky fermented scent permeated the fridge, the container of rice sitting next to her, the kitchen, and the wider apartment. Its greeting at the front door was akin to that of an obedient puppy rushing fervently towards its owner.

I had downcast eyes whenever I passed my housemates. I knew what they were thinking – I knew they were insinuating the brown squishy lump on my shelf be banished into the depths of the nearest garbage bag. “Nooo!!” I yelled in my loudest mind’s voice. The weekend was just a day away. It would be foolhardy to give in now.

And suddenly, Saturday morning had arrived like a glorious Christmas present sitting wrapped in a bow under the Christmas Tree. I gently eased her from her resting place at the back of the fridge, careful not to have any part of her innards ooze out of her delicate, weathered chocolate brown skin.

The bowl of porridge was fresh out of the microwave, simmering gently and exuding the exotic smells of Tesco honey and cinnamon. I looked at her, smiled lovingly and said: “Darling, you did it. We did it”.

I had myself a double helping of porridge that day.

V.

so, soup up!

Processed with VSCO with a5 preset

Processed with VSCO with a5 preset

 

Dear London weather. Stahp it. Sincerely, Me.

London decided to bring it’s A game today. A for autumn. Rain, gloom, puddles, and more rain. A combination of this dreary weather combined with the chorus of coughs in the office left me feeling a little worse for wear. Today’s productivity involved a lot of time spent dreaming of devouring a batch of soul-warming, cold-fighting, immune-system-boosting chicken soup. They might as well add it to my job description, that’s how much time I spent. Aaaand that’s why I get paid the medium bucks.

I went into this decision to cook up some chicken soup with high hopes, and minimal planning. I even made the bold choice to go without a recipe. I was also very aware of the fact that my exponentially increasing hunger levels would only render my ability to follow a recipe impossible. I would compare it to that of an 8 year old trying to make sense of The Da Vinci Code. ‘Mary Magdalene what-now?’ Instead I channeled my inner disasasterchef and carefully selected anything in the fridge that resembled a soup friendly ingredient. If I was a taking bets I would’ve given myself 60-40 odds that it was going to be a pretty sub-par meal.

At this point my housemate walks into the kitchen and quips, “Oooh watcha making? What? Soup? You mean it doesn’t come out of a can?” Hahahaha. Oh how I shrugged and I laughed. But at the same time I thought, whoa! Revelation! Why hadn’t I thought of that? Here I was slaving away, assembling a potentially-terrible meal, when there was a much more convenient option available to me – just there ready and willing.

I could have so easily swung by my friendly neighbourhood grocery store on my way home with high hopes and minimal planning, and picked up a can of some humble chicken soup (Although, I could have also just as easily swung by my less friendly neighbourhood chicken shop and bought some chicken tenders but that’s a story for another day). I could have had the same tummy-warming experience, for the low, low price of ‘using Med-High setting for about 10 minutes whilst stirring it with a spoon’. Who am I to deny the efficiency in that? Especially in my state of sickness limbo. The suspense of the ‘Will I? Or won’t I fall prey to the mucus?’ is a dangerous thing to contend with.

For those of you playing at home, the soup I did make was a rare winner. I even patted myself on the back, just like an 8 year old would. Proud as proud can be. It could be argued that only real loser in this situation was time and effort. I mean I managed to get a decent meal right? What’s the problem then? But I’ve made myself a mental note, as well as a physical, hand-written note in the form of a grocery list to buy some canned soup. Because as the saying goes, time is money, people! If I had that time back I would’ve chosen to spend it making something like a sandwich or a whole lot of 2 minute noodles. Because if you’ve ever had soup for dinner before, you’ll know that soup is warm but it isn’t always filling. It’s like I saved those suspect vegetables for nothing.

J.

 

so, who?

 

(J) Grew up with middle-child status and a unique name. Fave things include sourcing a perfectly ripe avocado and having low maintenance hair.

(V) Personality drier than a bowl of All-Bran without the milk. Ethnically ambiguous, hailing from rural Australia, living in London, vitamin D deficient.