Peephole

There’s a very neat office downtown. It’s close to the best sushi restaurant in town, the metro and the waterfront. Rent is prohibitive expensive. This is where trendy people live, work and breathe. They’re smart and follow fashion to the point.

It’s 10.30 am.

It’s Monday.

Ace: Morning
J-Man: Morning

They are too busy to take a week off although everybody else is taking time off to go to the beach, rent a cottage or just laze about in bed all day. They turn on their macs.

J-Man’s email programme, 78 new messages. One third is from FridayNext. He doesn’t utter a word. He doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t wince. One by one, he reads them and archives them in the FridayNext folder he’s made.

It’s been 3 months since she was allowed to email him directly and already the folder takes up 7 mega bytes.

Excerpts:

Hi J-Man
Are you busy?
Are you busy?
Are you busy?
High 5
Friday

Or:

J-Man J-Man J-Man J-Man
The sun’s out! Toasty!
Friday

12.00.

First word since 10.30:
Ace: I need nicotine.
J-Man: Right.

1.00 pm

They break for lunch.

1.30 pm

Back to work

2.30 pm

J-Man: *clears his throat*
Silence
J-Man: Have you heard from FridayNext?
Ace: Constantly.
J-Man: Right.
Ace: I need nicotine.

4.00 pm

J-Man: I’ve made the final adjustments for one of Friday’s covers.
Ace: Mmm.
J-Man: Has she ever texted you?
Ace: *looks up* No
J-Man: Right.

5.30 pm

Ace: Close down for today?
J-Man: Yep. Oh…
Ace: What?
J-Man: Got another text from Friday.
Ace: Right.