Day Two

4am. Buddy is restless and Sam takes him downstairs. I pretend to be still asleep, I don’t want to get out of bed, besides I have to get up  and go to the office, Sam gets to sleep in.

I’m up at 6am for my second day in the office.

It is winter dark. The bakery guy tells me he loves the winter and for me to enjoy my day as I get a loaf of bread for my breakfast. I have to say that I don’t mind winter. I like the change of seasons. And winter makes me feel alive.

Buddy is a sleep on the couch. Snoring. His pink tongue sticking out of his mouth ever so slightly.

I have fresh bread with Vegemite and coffee. I peruse Facebook, as boring as I find Facebook. It’s just dull, with friends posting cliched memes for the most part.

6.50am. I leave Buddy asleep on the couch and head out the front door.

Just before 7am. A Tesla backs silently out of its garage as I walk across its driveway. Pretty happy that is saw me all dressed in black in the dark.

7am. I catch an old number 12 tram into the city.

Georgio Armani is lit up in Collins Street. Bright, white lights shining out in the black veil of morning.

7.04am. A fat boy dressed all in black walks his chubby arse off the tram at Swanston Street. I can just picture him in his patterned undies with his love handles and his pastie white legs.

7.06am. A guy runs thudding onto the tram with a hoodie and a black mask over his mouth and olive skin, what I could see of it, all gangster like he’s running from the pigs. He was straight onto his phone panting deeply.

7.07am. I’m at William Street. A handsome Aboriginal boy is getting on as I get off. He has a black hoodie too that suits his complexion.

Two guys in a Ute with high rise specialist written on the side jump out of the Ute and rush into the building on the corner as if the building is in need of high rise specialists. They are a bit Starsky & Hutch, or whatever the modern equivalent is now with the kids. Two tattoo covered gender fluid boys with purple hair and piercings no doubt. 

The rear tail lights of a BMW 4WD are blood red strips in the dim morning light.

7.13am. I am in the office. Not really necessary for me to be here quite so early but I get up early and I get going early attempting, and succeeding, I might add, to make work suit me. Ha ha.

The lights in the office are on sensors and they come on one by one in front of me as I walk to the kitchen, like some new age yellow brick road coming alive just for me.

The coffee machine makes my coffee how I like it. The macchiato setting pours a shot of coffee and a shot of milk. I call it my 50 50. The same amount of coffee as milk. (The first of many)

The fruit box is empty.

And some time during lock down we have lost our luxo chocolate chip cookies and our scotch finger biscuits, now we have faux-airplane food, two pack biscuits wrapped in plastic as if even the biscuits have to be protected from the pandemic. Safe sex cookies. WTF?