pomodoro-words

[pomodoro-words]

Magic

March 17. Today I'm cleaning at Claire's house, one of those arrangements that is transactional and intimate.

I like her.

I think we'd be friends if she wasn't paying me. Maybe one day, I'll stop cleaning and we can actually try. Does it work like that? Lucia Berlin wrote a short story, probably based on experience (she was dismissive of enquiries about the 'truth' in her writing) called "A manual for cleaning women". It's funny and true.

(Cleaning women: As a rule, never work for friends. Sooner or later they resent you because you know so much about them. Or else you’ll no longer like them, because you do.)

"I've got to go out. Sorry about that. I'll put the radio on for you," Claire says.

We often chat when I'm between rooms and she's working in her dining room. It's a pleasant combination of mutual industry with intermittent giddy exchange, quickly extinguished for propriety.

"Magic ok?" she asks a bit nervously. We know each other well in some domains, but not all.

"That's fine," I say, "I can do Magic". It wouldn't be my first choice but I can't imagine what would. I haven't listened to a radio station in years.

She leaves, family tasks to attend to. Her absence is successfully obscured by chirpy male and female DJs, doing a sort of teasing couple bit.

A prerecorded voice announces "hits from the 80s till now," which strikes me as an absurdly elastic category, spanning nearly half a century, as if it were a unified cultural moment. The voice brags about not repeating songs for "the whole workday".

What unsettles me in the continuing broadcast is the realisation that I know every song. I've been there for every song. I'm someone in every song.

The Backstreet Boys emerge from the speaker - their harmonies engineered for maximum teenage yearning -and I'm thinking of Jalin, a fighter I knew who used them for his walkout song, which paired with his professional brutality - earned him the adoration of the crowd. I realise I have been gone from that life for over three years. Do I still have claim to those people, and that version of me? I leave him a voice message, compelled to find out.

Natalie Imbruglia sings "Torn," and I remember the video, her iconic, baggy, low slung combat pants. That cool side fringe. She must still eat out on this song. There is probably someone listening to it every minute of every day, somewhere.

Savage Garden follows - they were never good.

Wham's "Freedom" plays, thin, tinny in a way I've never noticed before. I'm transported to an optimistic, wide eyed pre-teen, fantasising about having a boyfriend, and whether George Michael would really fall in love with me should we be thrown together in unusual circumstances (turns out probably not). I can't help but smile, and I feel an urge to whirl around a bit with my cleaning rags.

I don't listen to music anymore. This is something I don't tell people because they look at me as if I might be unwell, or unclean. Music makes me uncomfortable in a way that's difficult to articulate. I'm unwilling to revisit songs from my past, as if there is no value there. None of the new songs impact me, as if I lack the ability to be moved by music.

Yet here, trapped in the commercial cathedral of Magic FM, I'm experiencing something like involuntary integration. With each familiar chorus, fragments of my history collide. Puzzle pieces that don't quite fit but suggest a larger picture. The pre-teen finding their own music, the teenager so excited about going out, the first broken heart, the second... the breaker of hearts.

Is this why people subject themselves to the randomness of radio? Is this the function of music itself - to bring our scattered pieces together? The thought occurs to me while spraying glass cleaner on Claire's bathroom mirror, watching myself disappear behind circular motions of the microfibre cloth.

[pomodoro-words]

Lost Property

Walk decisively, or the flood of people, will carry you away and you'll wash up in a ditch. I'm striding through Waterloo, pretending to know where I am going. I falter at a large, hanging sign with one of those arrows that points at 45 degrees. Does it mean down the escalator? Or right-ish? I'll need to choose. An employee in a CUSTOMER SERVICE vest is passing.

"Hi, excuse me, can you tell me how to get to Lost Property?"

He replies in a stream, like an auctioneer, without pauses. I nod my understanding with the same urgency he delivered. I'm glad he gestures, I would have gone the wrong way. I memorise his consonants and repeat them back to myself like a mantra until the directions become real. "Down the escalators and make a right and another right and if you don't see it ask someone down there."

The escalators take me down, right past a McDonald's unit delimited by a spotless glass screen, so insubstantial it's like the idea of a McDonald's rendered in a futuristic Hollywood film. It has those self-service screens like flagpoles in a carefully ordered grid to minimise interaction. Service reduced to touchscreens and QR codes - all very efficient until something goes missing. Keep walking and more glass doors lead out of the station, to a utility road under the girders of the station.

It's rough, dirty and industrial under here. Delivery vans unload boxes of single-serving creamer. A steel barrier prevents me from stepping into the road, and a woman in a brown McDonald's hat leans her weight on her arms, exhaling slowly on her smoke break. I wonder to myself if that's permissible, in the Crew Member Handbook? I keep walking and find the double doors to the Lost Property office. A young woman just in front of me presses the release button on the doors. I follow her in, but she says to me, "You go ahead, I'm on the phone". I step forward into the small cubed room, and she moves against one of the four walls.

It's windowless and glaring, like a large walk-in wardrobe. It's quiet too, all the sound and motion of the station suddenly extinguished. It's airless, and a bit musty. There is a closed-up fireplace on one wall, and I'm confused how this could have been a room for an open fire. The floor has weathered grey lino and two blue upholstered chairs screwed to one wall. They're covered in stains, a bit shiny, like decades-old chewing gum. The desk area behind the counter is darker and empty.

I may have lingered too long. The woman steps forward on my behalf, perhaps with impatience, pressing a buzzer beneath a sign saying "Ring for assistance".

A man in his early seventies with thick glasses lenses emerges from the door at the back. His hair is white and wayward. He looks a bit like he's been sleeping.

"Hi," I open, "you emailed to say you've got my luggage."

He blinks at me vaguely, giving the impression he doesn't see me too clearly - but is at peace with that.

"We emailed, huh?" he says in an unhurried air. I smile and press the phone against the glass. I've got the email open. I'm prepared. Ready for war. Ready for disappointment. He peers at it, looks up at me, and says, "I'll take a look." He shuffles back out of the back door and I take a seat on the black shiny chair. I forget the woman has said she is on a call, and say nervously, "This place is a bit weird". She gives me the polite "I know you've forgotten I'm on the phone, but I see you" look.

I examine the room, but there isn't much to see. An ugly telecom set with a boxy, yellowed speaker in plastic attached to an angled mic that reminds me of a gynaecological tool. A poster lists the 'Recovery Charges' which vary from £20 for laptops to £10 for phones. Bikes and musical instruments are £3, and "keys, reading books and Filofaxes" a mere £2. Medicines are free. There is also a daily fee for electrical items (£1) or anything else (50p). This looks like the kind of information that causes disagreements.

I'm trying to remember what is in my bag, and if the total will be cumulative, but the clerk returns, and with two hands lifts my yellow luggage at eye level, like an offering. I give him a big beaming smile of joy.

"There it is!" I exclaim, stepping forward.

"ID," he asks, placing the luggage down. I'm prepared, I pass him my maroon British passport under the slit in the perspex. He takes it, flipping through the pages.

He keeps flipping.

And flipping.

Until he reaches the very last page.

The emergency contact page.

He looks up at me. "Martin Reyes?" he asks.

Confused, I nod, adding, "That's my husband."

He looks down at the passport again, reading Martin's contact details.

He looks up at me.

"New Mexico?" he asks.

Unsure what we're actually discussing, I nod, blankly.

He shrugs as if it's not worth his time, and takes a side door out of the office. A few seconds later he magically appears, from the street entrance, and places my luggage down, leaving without a word.

I leave quickly, eager to get back into the stream.

[pomodoro-words]

The gunslinger

When we first hooked up, she pushed me around. I enjoyed it. She had strong dominating energy, swagger, and great jawline. She moved like a predatory animal, understated power in loose limbs. Blond, but not fake, broad shoulders. Comfy athletic gear, soft and perfumed, like you'd get from an expensive laundry service. The way she'd dismiss me after sex was almost elegant - she'd flip away from me like a cat righting itself in on landing, checking her phone, and she was out. That was my signal to leave.

I saw she had a partner, there were photos of the two of them all around the flat, kissing in photo booths. He had a wide grin with big teeth that didn't stay hidden. She was always posed in the photos; giddy surprise, playful aggression, a scrunched up nose, an innocent gaze away as he plants a kiss on her cheek. I didn't recognise her in the photos, not the spirit of her, and I wondered if he did.

She never mentioned him, but the slippers and dressing gown were his.

The whiteboard in their kitchen - meals planned for the week. Egg whites and protein shakes, calculated macros in neat capitals. Someone else's handwriting had added "pasta night?" in the corner, ignored.

I saw that book too, the one about the rules for life, Jordan Peterson, and a motivational poster by the home gym depicting an iceberg. The word "Success" was printed at the top. Beneath the water, "Determination, Late Nights, Rejections, Sacrifices".

I didn't ask, and she didn't tell. It was fun for a while. She'd sometimes summon me at lunch. She worked from home. She'd enjoy a roll before getting back to the phone. I heard her once from her office room - as I gathered my clothes - selling energy contracts to small businesses. I was surprised how girlish and posh she sounded - all cut glass and honey, giggling between closing deals.

[pomodoro-words]

Changing rooms

The navy, wool overcoat hung on the coat hook by the communal shower. The yellow folds of the tobacco pouch peeking out of the pocket.

[pomodoro-words]

THE CLEANER

In the office room, behind dual monitors, and wearing an awkward headset that made his ears hot and itchy, Michael Bryce struggled to look engaged. His eyes panned across the screens, one representing the ebb and flow of the financial markets, the other a montage of bored-looking men - and Surya, of course, the CFO. To his left, the door was ajar, and he caught glimpses of Agata, the cleaner, swiftly working her way through the house.

Sometimes, between messages and charts, he would take comfort in this - Agata commanding spray bottles, microfibre cloths - and toward the end of the day, the vacuum, its hum muffled by the door she’d close with a polite, “Apologies, Mr. Bryce.”

He’d wonder about her life. Did she have kids? A husband? What did she do in the hours and days between her weekly visits? She was attractive, he thought, in a sharp, no-nonsense sort of way.

Every Friday, Madelaine, Michael's wife, left an envelope for Agata on the kitchen counter. It annoyed Madelaine because she was tasked with getting the cash from the ATM, and she had nagged Michael to ask Agata about a bank transfer. He’d dutifully suggested it, but Agata had laughed and said, "Oh, cash is king, yes?” He shrugged and said, "Okay." Madelaine wasn't happy, but when was she ever? He remembered her face this morning, when he’d reached out tentatively, to touch her thigh. She'd frozen and shot him a sour look before casting off the duvet and striding in haste to shower.

Watching Agata now, behind the screens, he thought “I would fuck her” and smiled, momentarily thrilled at the wrongness, before turning back to the sad, puffy features of the partners.

Agata moved through the house swiftly, her five-foot-two frame clad in practical black jeans and a black t-shirt that had lost its shape. Her dyed red hair was pulled back tightly, revealing rounded cheeks and pale skin. She worked with precision. Each surface was smoothed with long sweeping motions into submission, then roughly buffed to bring out the shine on the polished marble.

When Madelaine swept into the master bedroom, Agata didn't pause in her work. A water spot on the vanity disappeared beneath her cloth.

"Hey, Agata," Madelaine paused at the doorway, adjusting her diamond tennis bracelet. "Can you not clean the mirror on the bedside table?"

Agata's eyes flicked to the mirror in question - another antique piece with too much ornate detail - then back to Madeleine's face. Her expression remained unreadable. "Sure, Madelaine," she replied.

Madelaine, seemingly dissatisfied, added, "And can you make sure to only use the Pink Stuff for the kitchen sink?" Her manicured white fingernails drummed once against the doorframe.

"Yes, Madelaine," Agata said, with a polite smile, as small and efficient as everything else about her.

Madelaine lingered a moment longer, her mouth tightening at the corners, "I'm just off to the shops," she said, swinging her peach leather bag as she turned and exited the room.

In his office, Michael's voice carried through the door as he discussed leverage positions and market strategies. He didn't notice Agata passing by with fresh linens for the guest room.

Agata flicked out the sheet, the waves landing it evenly across the mattress. She pulled it taut, corner by corner, and tucked in the sheet tightly at the edges, her fingers folding the edges into a sharp, clean angles —hospital corners, as they called them.

Bent at the hip, she slipped something from her back pocket and reached it underneath the side table. Blindly, she prepped the small USB drive with a few clicks of a button on the side. The tiny device flashed red, then green, then it blinked to black. She pressed it into a recess, and heard a small click. She smiled a little.

Standing tall, her eyes caught a wrinkle in the bedspread, and she smoothed it away.

That evening, in a private Discord channel named 'DarkPool Whispers VIP', messages flew back and forth, punctuated by a storm of emojis and GIFs. The arrival of the user 'BigRed' set off a fresh wave of excitement.

BigRed: "Crew: This week's target will be $QBDY. Data breach incoming, loading up on deep OTM puts, aiming for the $50 strike price for next month."

BigRed: "You know what to do."

The channel erupted with enthusiasm, members falling over themselves to contribute to the discussion.

GeneH: "For real? What's the deal with Qubit Dynamics?"

Arcl1ght: "Bold call… Stock's sitting at $75.”

CipherWolf: “IV will be insane.”

BigRed refrained from further explanation, letting the members speculate.

Another message from BigRed appeared, this one lacking context: "DarkPool loves you. Refer a friend to get one month free. DM for links"

In the Bryces' guest room, the USB drive silently syphoned its payload while the family slept.

[pomodoro-words]

Meredith Vaughn 6b

The words were written in soft pencil, in slightly cramped, amateur cursive, at the top right. Beneath that, her name had been written in pencil again, with the intent to fill the whole of the wood board with more detailed flourishes: a looping M, a spiral on the g.

Picking up the painting, Meredith examined it as if for the first time. She flipped the canvas. Bold geometric shapes painted in a symmetrical pattern. It was not terrible, but she saw where the white had overlapped the black and remembered how its lack of perfection had annoyed her at the time.

She’d have been thirteen or fourteen when the painting was returned to her at the end of term. A shy girl in an oversized school cardigan, the sleeves forcefully pulled long, perpetually tethered in her fists. Her teacher congratulated her on her work, remarking that styling the circles like eyes had "brought the canvas alive". Meredith hadn’t done it on purpose, but she smiled anyway and accepted the generous grade. Afterwards, she felt slightly disappointed that the teacher was so eager to find depth, in places where none was intended.

She could bring to mind that version of herself, but it seemed like someone she’d witnessed, not inhabited.

She continued to pull dusty items from the storage space under the eaves: a printed canvas of a Banksy rat that made her snort with derision, and a cheaply framed poster for a documentary that had once been a favorite among the trendsetting crowd. These were definitely not keepers.

She felt a sting as her cigarette burned down to her middle finger. She groped for the ashtray that was now hidden amongst assorted debris on her floor. Finding the heavy blue ashtray, branded with Ruddles Best Bitter in blocky caps, she roughly stabbed the cigarette at its base, although it was all filter now.

Standing upright, she grabbed two plastic bags of clothes in one hand and awkwardly arranged the three pictures under the other arm.

As she descended the three flights, the chill of the stairwell enveloped her, and the sound of her flip-flops echoed against the concrete walls.

At street level, a man was lingering around the skip, where she’d earlier discarded a small side table. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, his head inspecting the skip like a pigeon pecking at crumbs. He was in his mid-thirties, with a bad, choppy haircut and wore shorts inappropriate for the December climate. He turned as she approached, smiling confidently. He was waiting for her deposit, like a shopper in the sales hoping to get a bargain.

She flipped the plastic bags into the skip. She would have thrown the art in too, but it seemed uncharitable, so she smiled at the man, shrugged, and placed them at the foot of the skip. As she walked back to the flats, she paused by the gate. The man was holding up the old geometric painting, first landscape then portrait, evaluating it. He laughed to himself, taking the Banksy canvas too, and waddled out into the street with his quarry.

[pomodoro-words]

Bluebeard's Castle

I live in a mews.

I didn't know what a mews was before I lived there. It's a row or a courtyard, with spaces that were once used for stabling horses and storing carriages. The upper floors were often used as living quarters for grooms or coachmen.

Now they are mostly residential - and any stables are long gone.

I like my mews. There are about ten residences here, flats over converted garages, some of which are now workshops, businesses and studios.

To enter the courtyard you walk under a peculiar, almost trefoil archway. I always think it looks like a giant lock and I imagine a golden, twenty-foot high key that would fit in it.

It's a listed building, which in the UK means it's of special interest, and laws protect it from being subject to significant changes. It's one of those fusty things about the UK that I enjoy. Although I own no property that I'd like to alter, so I only see the benefits.

My mews has a public database entry to categorise the features of interest. It looks like this:

Dwellings over garages. c.1881. Yellow stock bricks, moulded brick and stone dressings, brick quoins, slate and bitumen-covered hipped slate roofs with overhanging eaves carried on bracket cornices. This is the only mews with an archway entrance. In the area, it's the only mews originally built with such an imposing entranceway.

I love that this is someone's job; to study these buildings, identify its features with the appropriate esoteric language (what's a quoin? I'll leave that for you to look up) and write these passages for public record.

This isn't the point, other than to say my mews is a peculiarly historic environment, a negotiated space with shifting purposes. There is limited, time-sensitive parking for the homes and businesses that operate there. Sometimes it can be hard to wind my way through multiple vehicles, walking my bike to my front door.

Today as I was walking home with my bike, a car and van were parked parallel, blocking most of the courtyard. I started to squeeze past on the car side but found it too narrow, so I turned back and went around by the van instead.

A large man, over six feet tall, stepped out squarely in front of me, blocking my path.

"Where are you trying to get to?" he said firmly.

I felt an unfamiliar emotion stiffening me. Contrary to my usual friendly demeanour, I replied, “Why?” - a single word, both question and boundary.

There was a pause, where I held his eye. It may have felt longer than it was, but after that moment I sensed he had moved a little out of my way, and I began to move forward.

“I thought my car might be in your way,” he said, his tone still authoritative, but I didn't stop to look at him.

“I live here,” I said. From behind, I heard him say, “I suppose I should have recognised you.” I kept walking and let myself into my flat.

It took me several minutes in my kitchen, whilst I paced about, still wearing my bicycle helmet, to analyse the feeling.

It was anger.

I had to replay the event to discover why he had angered me. Had he really done anything wrong? His words were not obviously hostile. How had his body been turned towards mine? Why did I feel he was looking down his nose at me? What was it in his stature, his tone, that had offended me so?

When these things happen, I often test the situation with my own behaviour. Would I have stepped in front of someone and spoken in the way he did? If I had meant well, how might I have approached a stranger that perhaps was put out by my car? All I could think was that I’d have opened with an apologetic 'Is my car in your way?'

Another simulation I run is would he have behaved in the same way were I a man? In this case, I think the answer is yes. This was not about gender. I would guess this man is an established homeowner in the mews. There was something proprietorial about his manner, as if I were in the grounds of his castle.

I feel satisfied with my response.

I have not always been the quickest to respond to an emotion, with trust. I remember in therapy years ago. I’d retell, as if to a friend, with words tumbling out, a situation that had upset me. The therapist would lean forward urgently and say, “Where do you feel it in your body?” This would silence me, and I’d think, “Oh fuck off.”

I still don’t feel emotions in the way that would satisfy my old therapist. I don't know where in my body the anger was. What matters today is that I let it lead me.

Sometimes the body feels things quicker than the mind can unpick them. I was raised to be polite, be pleasant, and not to cause a fuss. When I followed these rules, and ignored my instincts, I found myself disappointed afterwards.

It’s too easy to assume guilt or wrong-doing when confronted. Like an ill fitting door, it drags and forms an ugly welt over time.

I'm tired of the old rules, and these small moments of self-possession are how I reclaim my own thresholds.

[pomodoro-words]

Dumb shit I've said as a cleaner

Making small talk

Cleaner: So, where are you going away?

Client: Black mountains, near the border with Wales.

Cleaner: Good choice.

Client:

✭✭✭

Client lets me in the house for the first time.

Cleaner: What about my shoes?

Client: Oh, we don’t worry about the carpet

I look down at the 80's floral carpet in pinks, pulling a grimace.

Cleaner: But it’s so lovely.

Client:

✭✭✭

New client asks me about my connection to their last cleaner, who passed on the work.

Client: So, how do you know Louise?

Cleaner: (laughs) The cleaning underground! We have WhatsApp groups you know.

Client:

✭✭✭

New client shows me the vacuum cleaner.

Client: Sometimes the roller isn’t spinning on the Henry.

Cleaner: (Confusion) But a Henry doesn’t have a roller.

I inspect the Henry.

Cleaner: (With a dubious head tilt) I think you'll find that’s an after market head.

Client:

✭✭✭

On arrival at a new client's flat.

Cleaner: So, the house looks perfect! When I spoke to your partner on the phone, she was saying what a mess the kids made, but this is really tidy!

Client: (looking hurt) Well, they’ve been away for two weeks. (and then slightly sadly) I have them two weeks on, and two weeks off.

[pomodoro-words]

50% Gray

The glow of his screen is the only light. His papery face reflects the colors like a projector screen. He paddles his feet to maneuver his chair closer.

The image on the screen frames the wide bed in the over-lit room. Furry cushions, and toys surround her. A halo of colored lights pulse across the back wall, in blues, and then pinks, and then greens.

She moves the oversized vibrator, a plain white wand between her legs. As she crosses and uncrosses her legs, he sees the wet pink flesh shining. Or he thinks he sees it.

He doesn't wear his headphones, and he keeps the sound muted. It's pleases him to imagine the sounds she'll be making. He reads her lips imagining the words she's telling him.

He is suddenly fascinated by a plush toy on her bed. It resembles some kind of root vegetable, with large sad eyes, wearing a green pointed hat. It rocks, closer and closer to the edge of the bed as the woman moves more urgently.

His elbow strikes repeatedly against his chair, but he doesn't move to halt it. Muted thuds. As he buries his sharp breaths, the soft toy falls, bouncing twice to rest.

The air is stale. The computers fans whirr more loudly, roaring like a waterfall.

[pomodoro-words]

The Tudor

I left the shop pleased with some late-night comfort food. The streets were dark, and a light rain had begun to fall. I sped up when I saw my flat and was almost breaking into a half-run when I noticed something at ankle height stacked against the large rubbish skip.

I couldn’t help stopping to look.

It was a box, about as deep as a shoe box but wider. It had a bright red cover, a handle—and small locks that they don’t really make anymore. I thought it might be a small suitcase and reached out for the handle, only to discover it was incredibly heavy. Flipping open the little latches, the red lid opened, and inside was an ancient reel-to-reel machine loaded with tape.

I resolved to save the machine, as the rain would soon douse it, and I was fairly sure it wouldn’t survive. I hauled the contraption upstairs to my flat, the comfort food now diminished in significance.

Once in my room, I went about examining it. It seemed to be in good condition. Its body was a stiff grey leatherette, its lid and base a vibrant red. Shiny black plastic with gold lettering declared it “The Tudor.” I rotated it, looking for the power supply, but found none. Finally, I discovered a small compartment in the back with a white plastic knob that could be slid aside to reveal the plug, which was stashed loosely in the recess.

I plugged it in, manipulated the dial marked “Tone/On,” and the wheels began to spin. The motor rumbled like an old car idling.

The sound of a small child reciting nursery rhymes played from the speakers built into the sides of the box.

“The farmer wants a wife" sang the child, "the farmer wants a wife, ee, eye tiddly eye, the farmer wants a wife."