FIGS

AT 6:30 AM, I get to work.
‘...Beehind!’
It’s door creaking, followed by the bartender, Jamie, gliding in the room with
5 steaming cups of black coffee.
As he leaves, we tap elbows.
After 2 sips, I placed my cup above the sink.
6:35 AM - time to reload the machine.
I prodded the buttons, and out churned the drone song, ending with 6 beeps.
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.
Its guts began to flood with boiling water, blasting the chrome walls, causing the ceiling to jolt.
A pause.
The crimson bulb flashes, tripping a new set of bodily fluids to zap the insides. Suddenly, the vapour erupts,
crumpling, and falling back to Earth.
All the spittling then dies down, and the machine whirrs faint sweeping thuds and
one
final
beep.
Cautiously, I lifted the machine lever and clouds crashed out of the innards, choking the kitchen in a silver bubble.

I love the machine.

Other things, not so much - like when the waitresses threw dishes in the sink.
At times, they broke. Once, one slashed me in the palm, and after I got plastered,
I still had to clean up after service. I couldn’t get rid of the smell of copper.

I didn’t like when the chefs were in a mood.
Sometimes, they’d shout at each other; then they’d shout at me.
They’d say sorry when the night was over and we were outside having a smoke.
But, it still hurts.
Everything else was OK but it still hurts a bit.

AT 7AM, the chefs march in.
Head chef, Seth, came in with sous, Sophia. He waved, and she mouthed a hello.
Will followed behind with a copy of The Times, eyeing them, tutting.
Two days ago, in the basement, he told me Seth and Sophia were having sex.
‘Look at how they’re smiling,’
He left, grabbing the pen he lent me earlier.
Then, Mary-Anne came in.
I still hadn’t read her my letter.
…
She grinned at me, ‘Hey dude’.
Her hair was in a bun.
She called in sick a few days ago, but here she was, and a lot tanner than before.
I beamed back and told her about the past week.
She didn’t know that since she left, I counted each day in my head, praying she did not realise that she should be
anywhere else, not wasting years with us here. She was easily the best chef, faster than Will and smarter than Seth.
But, I don’t think she cared about cooking or the restaurant.
Really, I don’t think any of us did.

I wanted her to take me to the back for a smoke. Talk about something. I don’t know what.
Maybe a story about ‘The Bitch’ - her mother, who she hadn’t seen since she was 17​​ or whatever boyfriend she picked up over the weekend - the last one told her he had a yellow muscle car.
She only found it was a taxi on their third date.
When she got really into a story, she’d hold your hand as if begging you to listen and remember her words.
When she held my palm, I felt something I thought I forgot for a very long time.

And in turn, I wanted to hold her all the time like a baby, and watch as she chased down tickets, chopped carrots and
ran to and fro, up and down, left and right, until service was over.
I’d stare as she strapped up her apron, hoping that if she had just a little moment, she’d glance and smile back at me.

Maybe then, I could give her the letter.
I’m feeling its roughness against me. The creases on the corners, how the edges wrap when I move.
I’m reciting the words in my head. I’m dancing to what it says. I’m twirling around in bed.

I told her how the boys from the high school football team came over.
"And a guy dropped 100k in tips. And, Missy Elliott performed!".
She replied, "Bad one,", and punched my arm.
I liked it. Hit me again.
Please hit me.
Hit me all over.
Please.

Throughout the whole day, I washed and washed.
Plates, pans, forks, knives, floors, sinks, tubs, hands, ramekins, hands. On and on again.
Everything entered the machine then came out humming over and over.
I had to be careful though,
Chef once said the dishwasher before me burnt all his eyebrows off. Mary-Anne said I’d still look good with no eyebrows.


When I washed, I could daydream.
I’d watch the water dance between my gloved fingers.
I was OK at it now, unlike my first shift, when I cried so much because I couldn’t feel my fingertips.
The next day, I was shit. And the day after that. And I kept on being shit until the good times came.
And they came with with secret handshakes, pints, straights, and ‘who was fucking who’s’.
Marlboros during breaks and American Spirits for good nights, the highest nic ratio as Seth would say.

Today, I dreamt of the Sea.
The sand falling from my palms.
The Sun, the Moon and the stars bowing before me and my arms waving. The heavens at my feet.
Floating in the breeze with my saline tongue and the waves bubbling,
beating each other for me.
The sea foam rinsed me, cleansing me.
I needed it all over me.

AT 3PM, it’s lunch - spag bol & meatballs.
We broke bread, feasting on the benches in the back - the tiny encasement in the restaurant,
where we dressed and dined.
It was doggedly damp and cold. Thankfully, we weren’t very tall, but more like mice, in the low ceilings—occupied
by a singular lightbulb that washed all of us in a blonde veneer.

Sophia poured some wine into disposables.
I was giggling next to Mary-Anne.
A week ago, we went out for a smoke and she nearly ate her face off talking about
actresses she liked.
‘God bless Hollywood,’ she said. I thought maybe she had gone too hard on a nosefix.
She sneezed a couple times and I smiled.
And we stared at each other for a second.
Then, she kissed me.
It was only for a second and she pulled away, laughing.
I hadn’t seen her since.
When she was away, I wrote her the letter.
It was getting crushed under my weight.

Now, we had had too much and we were tumbling on each other like choir girls.
Will put on some Miles Davis on his boombox and we swayed hand-in-hand to the others’ hooting.
Mary-Anne twirled me around and I dove tee-topping in my rubber slippers.
‘Give ‘em a room!’ roared Sophia.
Mary-Anne snarled back, ‘Hey, shut up!’.
I blushed, covering my face.

Chef turned off the music. ‘Okay, enough. Dinner’s on,’ and with that, he left the room and
Sophia filed out after him then Will abandoned his boombox, making faces at us,
leaving Mary-Anne and me
alone in the room.
She half-collected her things. She was pretending to need more time.
I was under the lightbulb, laughing, with my hand over my chest.
Then, she was behind me.
‘I heard you wrote me a letter’
‘Who told you?’ I asked.
She shrugged.
‘When will I read it?’
I shook my head,
‘You won’t’.
She winked then put her lips to my ear.
‘I missed you’. Her warmth washed over me.
My breath doubled over.
She tiptoed closer.
‘Mary-Anne…’
And then, she kissed me.
The freezer’s buzzing. The light’s too yellow. It’s windy above the restaurant.
The air is stale. The ground beneath my feet’s moving. And the sound outside was deafening.
Her lips, the smell of coffee beans, tobacco, and orange skins. A pull and I’m closer.
Grease and sweat. Blood and bone.
I was floating in space, and as I gasped, I fell deeper into her.
Our tongues interlocking into one braid,
rushing past Mercury and Jupiter. My knees bleeding out.
Falling over and over.
Millions of sand grains leaving me.
The Moon taking place over the Sun.

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