The sun is shining, but not hot. The morning had been cold, despite July, and I have my sweater and toque tucked under my arm.

The shuttle pulls around the church onto the narrow cobblestone road in front of the tube station, and we all tumble out, scattering like quail, forgetting instantly the worlds we've left behind us.

I am coated in fine grey plastic dust, and scratchy crumbs of dark grey expanding foam. I leave a trail behind me in the air like a comet.

The violinist, the one I like, is shuffling back and forth on old running shoes, shabby cargo shorts. He is rosining his bow. He picks up his violin, and it gleams in the late afternoon light, thick and deep with potential.

~

My phone tells me it's wednesday. I can barely believe it. The weeks are slipping away, unseen and unfelt, a blur of work and deadlines and scratchy grey foam.

I develop a crush on E, the mould room guy who barely speaks. He has large British teeth and chain smokes, listening to me ramble on with a smouldering cigarette dangling from his mouth.

When he leaves at night he changes into heavy dark blue jeans and tight black motorcycle leathers.

The teenage girl in me, the one who was obsessed with Grease 2, can barely speak.

I feel so fat.

~

"I finally managed to lose weight," says one commenter, "when I stopped hating myself and started telling myself I deserved to feel healthy."

"What a novel concept," I wrote back. "Maybe I'll try it."

"Do," they write. "It helped me."

So I try it.

Every time I catch a glimpse of myself in a window, or a mirror, and my brain starts the hate speech, I repeat to myself: "I am beautiful and I deserve to feel healthy."

I stop eating sugar entirely.

~

I hunt for the perfect napping spot in the gardens.

I'm not the only one. I see others, crawling under sculpted bushes, reclining next to manicured ponds, sleeping their lunch hours away.

The hours are so long. We look so tired, all of us. Movie techs, after a while, gain this indeterminate grey colour, this tired grey-green-beige look around them, as if every movie they work on sucks a little more colour out of them.

~

I dig in the pocket of my work jeans for so coins. I only have a one pence, a ten pence, and a two pound coin.

I throw the two pound coin in his case and turn to go into the tube station.

"Hey!"

I look back. He's standing there, violin in hand, bow at his feet.

"Hey! I haven't even done anything yet! How come you're giving me money?"

I shrug, smile, embarrassed. "You play here a lot. I like your playing."

"Fine," he says. "But now you have to request something."

I can't think of anything.

"Star Wars?" I ask.

~

The new Italian tech is cute. Young, maybe. It's hard to tell. He has a boyish face, but a maturity around him I like. He has my favourite colouring: olive skin, dark hair (and lots of it). His tall body curls slightly, like a bow at rest, like he's always a little bit bent over an non-existent work table.

He smiles at me, shyly I think. His accent is thick, but his words are good.

He tells me about his house, a converted warehouse where he lives with ten other artists, and I am jealous.

Oh boy, do I want to see this man naked.

~

The violinist plays the Imperial March, shredding out harsh notes and double notes on the strings.

Four old Scandenavians pause to dance. I think they think it's a traditional song of theirs.

Maybe it is.

~

My contract gets extended.

I guess I'm going a good job?

I wish they'd pay me more.

I'm so, so, soooo fucking bored in my job. So bored.

So.

Bored.

But man, it'll make a good story later.

.

Rosie.

Before&After