euananthony

Janice works from home. She walks two hundred steps a day. Bed to sofa, sofa to desk, desk to sofa, sofa to bed. Sometimes she doesn’t manage the last step. Her meals arrive with the mail, frozen and encased in plastic. The red spicy one is her favourite. It’s the way the tang makes her tongue feel. She thought once about trying to make it.

Janice watches the news each morning, wrapped in a fluffy grey dressing gown. She holds a large coffee in her lap as the presenters on the TV tell her about war and violence. She sees explosions, buildings collapsing, lifeless bodies on the street, she sees famine and fire, and mothers carrying starving children in their arms. It soothes her to see the world like this. Comforts her. The clock in the corner of the screen reads 8 a.m. Perhaps she has time for another coffee.