My Lunch!

My Lunch!

The air is oppressive today. My head hurts because of the humidity; a fusion of heat and moisture permeates the city. I’ve had six hours of sleep, but it was neither good or enough.

It dawns upon me when I enter my car—you can sense a collective anxiety under the grey clouds. The sky holds back the rain, it refuses to fall. I see my neighbor stumbling on her way out, holding the dog’s leash. “You’re struggling too”.

I sit there for a while, silent; the engine is off. Has someone called in sick today? The office is a ten minutes drive from the house; on good days, I can slow down the driving. I reckon there will be traffic, honking cars, and sleepy eyes behind the steering wheels.

I glance at my watch, then I glance a second time; and third time. “Where’s the lighter?”, My hand fumbles inside my raincoat pockets, and a cigarette is dangling from my lips. “ Where’s the rain, nature gods!”; I take a few puffs, looking up at the sky.

I am worried—I have not handed in this month’s statistics yet. My manager will haunt me for this. Will he remind me before my first coffee?

“ I know you too well by now, Mr. Martin..”

The road is busy; I am lucky, it could have been worse. There’s a father with two kids in the car next to mine. A boy in the back seat looks at me; he seems to be singing some rhymes. His older sister is seriously gazing through the windshield. Her father adjusts the ventilation on the dashboard of the car.

1

Upon my arrival at the office, I am greeted with a smile from my coworker James. “You’re in charge today! Mr. Martin is working from home.” 

“ Really? "I breathe a sigh of relief, “ Thank God”.

“ Although, we do have another concern. We are missing four agents today”. He says, rolling his eyes. 

“Oh, no...many calls?”. I ask, looking at the production floor behind the huge glass.

“We had a rush the first hour, it's been calm for the past 20 minutes”.

I go to the common kitchen, and I brew myself a coffee. An angry note is hanging on the fridge, with the word THIEF written on it, followed by several exclamation marks. The clouds outside are thicker and darker now.

In the management room, James is holding an electrical mini fan to his face. It’s just the two of us in there. “Are the lines still quiet?” 

He nods. 

“Wonderful”. I sip my coffee and take my seat. The radio is playing at a low volume. I study the monitors, and I handle a few emails.

“ How many are we expecting for the ten-to-eighteen shift?”.

“ Three people.”, James replies.

The room gets quiet again. After a few minutes the phone rings.

2

“Yes?”, my coworker answers. “ Hi Matthew!”. James is scrolling on his social media, “yes…hmm…I see… well, we are missing four agents today…we need your help, Matthew…Can’t you take the train? hmm…Alright, if you prefer…hopefully you’ll be here tomorrow…ok, bye bye.”, he hangs up the phone.

“ Liar, liar...”, he affirms.

“ James, what are you saying?”, I remark, going through my excel sheets.

“ Last week he didn't feel well and missed two days, now his car won’t start...abducted by aliens next week?”

 He turns on the min fan again, closing his eyes, “ Can you hear that. A thunder. A storm is approaching—finally we’ll have rain!”

I turn my head and take a look at the production floor. Two agents have arrived for the next shift. I continue answering a few more emails, when the janitor knocks on the door. “What’s up, Malcolm.”, I ask..

 “ I think we got an intruder in the building!”, he informs in an urgent tone.

“Intruder! Where?”, says James.

“ Upstairs! Come and have a look, please.”, he replies, anxiously. 

3

I tell James to keep monitoring the lines. The janitor escorts me to the building’s internal stairs.

We are both looking at a blanket that has been placed on the stair landing.

“ See, somebody has slept here;”, says Malcolm,” I wonder for how long?”

“ How could they get past security?” 

“ We should inform them.”

“ Alright, Malcolm, you go downstairs and report it to the guards.”, I instruct him.

“ Aye, captain!”

I am standing alone. There are a few items on the blanket: an electric torch, a rolled up jacket, a few matchstick boxes; a plastic bottle with water, and a scrapbook with notes and writings in it. I quickly go through it, the content of the writings seems very personal, some pages have drawings.

There are no windows on the last floor, so I go down on the fourth to check the window, and realize, upon closer inspection, that the locking mechanism is jammed. I look out, there is a roof just below, where the person has climbed onto. I call security on my mobile, and they confirm being aware of the intruder.

4

I go back down to the production floor; the janitor is summarizing the events for the team. They seem to be amused by the incident.  

“ No wonder lunch boxes have been disappearing from the fridge!.”

“ The audacity!” 

I pass by the team, and head straight to the management room. 

“ The food started disappearing last week”, James informs me, when I address the issue.

“ I believe it’s a woman.”, I confess to him, leafing through the scrapbook pages.

“ My, oh, my!”, he utters.

Our attention is suddenly caught by disturbances on the production floor. The agents are all looking in one direction. 

“What’s wrong?”, I ask one of the agents.

“ There was a loud scream!”

“ It came from the kitchen," says another. 

In the common kitchen, an agent is surrounded by two colleagues, who are checking on her well being. 

5

“ She bit me! She bit me! The thief took my Tupperware, and then she bit me on my cheek”.

The agent is in a state of distress. A visible mark is on her face. A powerful lightning outside startles everyone in the room. 

I quickly leave the kitchen, and head to the internal stairs. I speed up my pace, and run up to the 4th floor, only to find the jammed window open, and the lunchbox on the floor. 

I see the woman on the roof. She looks back at me, like an animal who just escaped its predator; she then climbs down from the roof and disappears. .

Emotions are still high when I rejoin the people gathered in the common kitchen.

“ Where were you?!” I say to the security guards, raising my arms.

“ We were canvassing the garage, sorry”, one of them replies.

“ The woman..”, I tell them, “ she escaped from a window on the fourth floor.

“ We have a queue, people!”, says James, “ Please go and take the calls! Chop, chop little horses, back to your stable!"

6

“ Margaret got a bite on her cheek”, says James, once we’re back in the management room, “ juicy, plumpy Margaret! Did you have a look at the woman?”

“ Yes, I did. She’s around forty years of age, slim; tall..”, I reply. 

“ The guards have notified the police. I already spoke to Mr. Martin”.

“ Alright…listen here: : << The perfection of travelling is to travel without baggage. Even the elephant carries but a small trunk on its journeys>>. H.D. Thoreau

“ Lady is surreal”. states James.

I close the scrapbook and get up from my seat. “If Mr. Martin calls, I am on my lunch”. I inform James.

7

The book is lying on the front seat of my car. The wiper blades make funny noises on the windscreen; the rain is more intense, and the air is cooler.

I stop at a traffic light when I spot the woman. She is standing in front of a supermarket with her back to me. I park the car, and decide to approach her. 

When she sees me, she gets jumpy, and quickly looks around to see if I am alone.

“ Are you alright, mam..?”

“..I don’t know you...what!”

“ It’s your book, don’t you need it?”

She moves towards me. “Is there something you need? Maybe I can help you..” I say.

She approaches closer. There is a moment of silence. She looks at the book. “ Are you a married man? “she asks, almost whispering .

“ Yes….. I am married, and I have a daughter.”, I reply to her, before she strikes a powerful knee to my sensitive area. She escapes with the scrapbook in her hands, while I crouch down on the sidewalk.

8

It’s evening. We are watching a film after eating dinner. There’s a scene where a lady suddenly grabs her own hair and shouts uncontrollably.

“ She’s deranged!”, says our daughter.

I go out on the veranda and light myself a cigarette. My wife comes out; she puts her arm around me.

“ It’s a beautiful evening.”

“ I wish it would rain some more”, I reply.

9