Inside out
Out there it’s a hot Australian summer, but in here it’s freezing. I’m in the staffroom at work, listening to Dave shout over the coffee grinder about the problem with kids these days. The air-conditioning is set to arctic freeze, but crew keep barging in and out through the door, bringing blasts of tropical humidity that confuse the thermostat and make it colder still. One crew stomp in, hot and dishevelled. They’ve been at a road accident where the bitumen melted onto their boots, and some people died. Another crew are laughing and talking about the hoarder who lost their false teeth down the back of the armchair but called the ambulance because he was certain he had swallowed them. Nobody’s seen the other crew since logon, they got sent straight out to a seizure and were last heard asking for police backup. An out-of-town crew roll in, bitching about being sent so far away to cover.