The Voices Project 2015 by Various

Author:Various
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Currency Press

NIGHT SHIFT

CAITLIN RICHARDSON

SAM, an 18-year-old girl, wearing a soccer uniform and socks, stands on stage. A sports bag is on the floor beside her. There are three identically wrapped presents on the stage in front of her.

Sometimes when I’m getting ready for work, I put on my soccer uniform by mistake. I don’t know what happens—I’ve got my bag and I’m heading for the door and then suddenly I realise I’m wearing it.

Silence.

Suppose I miss it sometimes. The turf under lights. My boots. Kicking a ball against the wall till Stan tells me to piss off. The smell of the change-rooms, pies from the canteen, Brooke and Matt and Dimms and Nico and Joey and Sasha and Cal. All my mates. My family.

I miss running on the turf the most. But then when I’m driving home from work at five in the morning there’s space around me and suddenly I feel like I’m there again. The world is flat and wide in the windscreen and for a few minutes, everything is clear. I know where I am. Where I was then.

SAM on her sixteenth birthday.

She goes to the first present and shakes it.

What is it what is it?

Hope it’s edible. I’m starving. Wish I had—

SAM fumbles around in a sports bag and retrieves a piece of cake wrapped in Glad Wrap.

Crystal at work got this for me. I ate half of it before the lunch orders arrived. A piece fell into the deep-fryer. I fished it out but it burned my hand.

It still stings, but it’s alright. Tasted terrible, but I’m alright. Had to try it.

SAM eats the cake.

Mum was going to make a cake tonight, but now she’s got night shift. I’d hate to do night shift. I’d miss the sun, the light.

It’s getting dark now. Are you coming? For God’s sake.

SAM opens the present. There’s a Manchester United top inside.

How did you—how did you know I—?

This is too much.

It’s… it’s beautiful. It’s beautiful.

Silence.

It’s SAM’s seventeenth birthday. She moves on to the next present.

What is it? Can I eat it?

I’m hungry, always hungry after training. Mum was going to make a cake tonight, but now she’s got night shift. Marvin made me a cake at work though. Well, he lit a candle and wrote seventeen on a fishcake with tartare sauce. That’s something I guess.

Don’t tell me it’s a Man United top again. That is way too generous and besides, I still wear the one from my sixteenth. It is a bit small now. ’Cause back then I was scrawny and my legs were too long for my body. I hardly ever turned up to training and I didn’t buy the uniform in time and you thought I was a sook in my second game, but really I was crying because I had torn my hamstring and you had to carry me off the pitch. Ha! Got you that time, didn’t I?

SAM opens the present. It’s a Manchester United top.

Rob! This is bloody outrageous.

I, I can’t believe it. You are.

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