Chapter 1

Peter wakes before dawn. He would so like to believe he is still asleep.
Sand stings his eyes. A wet hand tosses him by the shoulder.
  "Get up, the sky looks lovely," Jennifer helps Peter to his knees, comes up behind him and drapes her cold, sandy arms around his chest.
A couple approach, Sandra and Adam. They spread out a bag of fish and chips.
  "I miss when they wrapped them in newspaper," says Sandra,   "It was like, catch up on current affairs while you eat."
  "And get ink all over your food," says Adam.
  "Small price for convenience." replies Sandra.
Peter lies back down, grabs chips over his head. Jennifer brushes her cold hand across his shoulder, mouths are you okay.
  "I’m fine." says Peter, a little too loud.
  "Guys, don’t fight!" says Sandra facetiously.
  "Shut up." says Peter.
  "I was just saying, we hate it when you guys fight."
  "We’re not fighting." says Jennifer.
The sky takes on a deep crimson.
  "Boys, right?" Sandra digs her arm into Jennifer’s
  "Hmm?" says Jennifer.

--

Light shuffling contrasts against the hum of the dark street, Peter feels Jennifer’s weight shift on top of him.
  "Are you trying to distract me?"
  "Is it working?"
  "For now."
The droll of Morley traffic registers only in the pulsing gray bars streaking across the wall opposite. Outside of Peter and Jennifer’s hearing, two cats fight or fuck or whatever.

--

Sleep comes only as a tightening of time. Peter folds slowly into a ball. His surroundings, the red light of his stereo, his empty bookshelves, the starchy orchids Jennifer left two weeks ago bloom into view. Peter does not check the time, tomorrow will find him soon enough whether he finds sleep or doesn’t.

--

Jennifer shoves Peter awake. It’s mid-morning and her father is coming to visit. Thankfully, he isn’t the sort of imbecilic, cretinous boyfriend to have forgotten. By way of proving he isn’t, Peter showers, dresses and wakes up all in the one continuous, jerking motion. 
Jennifer’s father, unapologetically named Bruce, arrives before lunch. Awaiting lunch. 
  "Would you prefer sandwiches, pasta, or a meat pie?"
  "A pie would do me just great," good, that’s all Peter ever has.
  "How have things been at work, Daddy?" asks Jennifer.
  "Good," says Bruce
  "Seen Mum?"
Grunt.
Bruce’s phone starts ringing. Peter had spent the better half of a day scouring dodgy websites searching for ’a ringtone which just sounds like a goddamn ringtone,’ back when he felt the need to make peace offerings to Bruce for dating his daughter.
  "That was Andrew," says Bruce "he’s on his way in five-ten."
  "Is he still okay, I mean after-" stammers Peter.
  "After what?" interrupts Bruce. They were still not talking about it.
  "Here’s your pie."
Andrew arrives, he and Bruce sit on either end of the L shaped couch, Peter wedged between them. Staring out at where a television would be if there was one. The silence is unbearable.
  "Pretty terrifying what’s going on with Ebola," says Peter, he might as well be speaking to himself for all the response he expects.
  "Enlighten me," says Bruce.

--

Peter turns on his CD player and Van Morrison’s Greatest Hits takes off from the 1:42 mark of Moondance. Peter had not yet hit a point in his life which seemed ill suited to Van Morrison’s Greatest hits, and he used his CD player infrequently enough that he never tired of it. Once, weeks ago, he had tried to change the disk to Talking Heads’ Greatest Hits but a crippling sense of misplaced sentimentality arrested him, and he let the CD player do as it pleased.
  "This bullshit again?" another of the benefits of The Greatest Hits.
  "I’m celebrating a day well spent."
  "A day well spent? What planet did you spend your afternoon on where what happened today could be considered ’well spent’? I’d ask if you were high the whole time if you weren’t such a square."
Teeth clenched, brow furrowed and lips pursed, Peter assumed what he would later realise had become his brace position.
  "Ebola? What the fuck? And when did it possibly occur to you that telling my dad about the racist guy down the beach was going to entertain him? And did you honestly, at any point during your monologue in defence of Justin Bieber, think that my brother’s response would be anything outside of ’yeah, he’s still a fag though’?" Jennifer resigns, “When are you going to step out of this world you’ve created where you think you’re going to change the way someone thinks with some half-assed anecdote you’ve just thought up?”
There comes a time in everyone’s life where they find themselves faced with an insult so glaringly accurate that it feels almost flattering, Peter did not know Jennifer had so much insight into his character.
Jennifer steps into the kitchen and opens a fresh bag of plastic cups. Peter follows her dopily.
  “Dad still can’t believe you don’t have a dishwasher. Want some juice?”
  “Yeah. I’ll have a glass though,”
They’d been over this before, Jennifer does not look up as she pours apple juice into two plastic cups.
  “You know that thing I was saying a while back, about how is it possibly easier to ship petrol halfway across the world, mould it, reship it, colour it, and package it, than it is to wash a glass? That hasn’t changed.”
  “And like I said at the time, I’m not the one doing any of that. What’s with the jabs at my family all day anyway, we’re bogans okay?”
  “This argument isn’t about your family, it’s about plastic,” says Peter.
  “It’s already been coloured and packaged and all that, so why does it matter us just using them?”
  “It’s not what’s already there it’s the supply chain, stopping buying these stupid cups is the only way to— Don’t even worry about it.”
  “Are you calling my dad stupid?”
Screw it. “Yes,” says Peter “I don’t think I can keep seeing you if you’re going to use plastic cups all the time."
  “Funny joke—“ says Jennifer, interrupting herself as she realises Peter was serious. Pride floods the space between them. It’s too thick to talk through, if either Peter of Jennifer opened their mouths to speak you would hear only a faint wheezing. And Jennifer begins to leave. She has a key, she doesn’t have to worry about gathering her things. Not that there’s anything here, a toothbrush, those fucking dead orchids. Probably a change of clothes somewhere. Nothing she’ll miss.

Next Chapter: Chapter 2