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Hey bitches, gimme some inspo for the pics aesthetic. First try above

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Closing Time (Louise version)

CLOSING TIME ( or CARNIVORE IN LOVE)

Its  Friday and five minutes to the end of my first week working at Simpsons High Grade Butcher. Just to clarify, it's my first week at this 'particular' butcher. Over the last ten years I’ve worked in a lot of butchers around the country. Butchering is my passion. Last year I was a finalist in the Premier Young Butcher Competition. This year I am planning to take out the National Smokey Pork & Stilton Pie prize. I take my profession very seriously. But unfortunately, this morning Elisha, our service attendant, rang in sick and I was shoved out to 'front of service'  to  manage the customer counter.

And I have seriously had enough of customers. I am a butcher for God’s sake, not a psychologist, not a social worker or your new best friend. People are crazy and I would happily spend a day with a dead carcass than another minute with a live human customer.

So naturally I head to the back rooms every chance I get. As I cross the doorway through the hanging plastic strips, the soundtrack changes from retail pop to familiar mopey man music.

I feel the temperature drop as I'm surrounded by catacombs of  fridges and freezers. Some hold rows of solid frozen lambs and goats, heavy enough to crack a shin bone if pushed aside in a hurry. Some hold bathtubs of sunken cuts, of who knows what, curing silently in amber liquid.

At the back is the jail of the smoking room, my favourite place, all shiny metals and hooks. This time of day it’s in stark contrast to the usual  river of blobby brown gunk drooling out of the corner of its dark door.

Similarly , the main cutting room is now a clean watery cavern. Small piles of plastic and meaty bits gather in circles around the floor drains. I see Dil , he’s the only other butcher working today. Now he’s got whisped-out hair from the last minute clean up. I have to give it to him, he has managed to bleach and scrape all 7 square metres of butchering floor space and surface area in just half an hour.

The chime at the front door rings “Ding Dong” , Oh , no! I should have put up the “Closed” sign. I retrace my steps back to the front counter. Two post-work waif customers have wandered in , probably bacon and pre-packed Osso Bucco.”Take your time girls , just four minutes till closing time!” I can see in their glassy eyes they’ll have a white wine and brie dinner tonight after dumping a cut of Osso Bucco in their slow cookers, putting off a proper meal until tomorrow night. They’ll wake ravenous but nauseous after restless sleeps and eat a quarter of the pale, nitrate free bacon pack. Most of it will get scraped off into the bin as they realize they partyed too hard at Friday night clubbing. I calm down, feel relief, too easy, no need to refill any more in the fresh meats counter display.

But that’s when things get weird. Just before I get to the front door to flick the sign to Closed,  I hear another "Ding Dong" and a loud grunt. In rushes a short guy with really broad shoulders, extremely close set eyes, not to mention large, clean pores and  a waxiness of complexion. His features mark quite a strong deviation to the far right on the 'Pork-Like' spectrum. A definite piggy-ness.

I guess he’s probably in the $50-$100  range on average, with a preference for high end bar-be-que. Before I can complete my calculation and ask the obligatory “May I help you?” of all things he yanks out what looks like a pistol and screams “Everybody down!”, just like in a gangster film.

The 2 waifs shriek and drop, making the last 3 months of Extended Pilates classes worth their while. Next he yells “I want 4 kilograms of snags”. At three minutes to closing time, he is really pushing it. I say this to the floor, because I have now joined the girls in what I would call a quick, and quite impressive “Downward Dog” manouver.

“Well what sort? We have 35 variations”. The ignorance of your average member of the public when it comes to the array of  gourmet sausages  astounds me - our  range is quite unbelievable. We really are winning the war with the vegans, but I digress. Personally, I am sure he’ll want pork, but it feels really rude to say pork in case it reinforces how I  noticed his porky features in that brief first encounter a whole minute ago, so I restrain myself and  say “ Would that be American Chilli Beef, sir? ( I take a pun and follow up on the gangster Americano theme) “We're just on the end of the batch so I've got about 3.5kg in the small packs?”.

That’s when he says “I want pork chipolatas” . And I think, “Well excuse me, maybe he knows a little more than I assumed, our pork chipolatas are quite spesh” but then he adds “paleo, freshly hung!”

“Well, lah de dah.” I think again.“This dude is a special edition...he wants the 'paleo freshly hung!!’ Plleeaassee!!”

He means the batch of freshly hung sausages we plan to sell tomorrow. Yes tomorrow, not today 2 minutes till closing time the night before tomorrow!!

I sort of smile, which is challenging, given the circumstances with the pistol, and me having just gotten up from the “Downward Dog” position. I cross my fingers and show him this gesture, as if I actually care. “I'll ask”.

Of all people, he wants pork chipolatas!  There’s something awkward here, short pig man wants short pig sausages? Not to mention the pistol! I have to admit the degree of desperation in some of these extreme carnivore customers is getting too much. Looks like this year I could be up for the “Brightest and Bravest” Butcher Award.

I head straight out the back to Dil and his left-sided-lazy-eye. He’s leaning on the stainless steel bench sharpening a very big knife. Before I can say anything Dil spins around and he’s reaching up cutting the chipolatas down from their pod-like plastic filmed bundles. Slamming the knife onto the bench he thuds past me with twisted lumps of synthetic collagen cases flailing wildly over his shoulder.

Next he  bellows “Norbert! Elisha’s not in! Put the water pistol away! Give me the twenty bucks and get the hell out of here. Girls get up”

Dil looks at me “Sorry mate, forgot to tell you. Norbert here comes up with some carry on every Friday afternoon. He’s trying to get Elisha’s attention but clearly its having the opposite effect. She didn’t even come in today. Norbert she’s a vegan , its never gonna work”.

The girls decide to forgo the bacon and pre-packed Osso Bucco. Norbert squeals, grabs the chipolatas and hurries out. I quickly lock the door.  Dil and I call it quits for the day, its right on 5 O’clock.

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29 pages in two PDF documents

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Moon   Minimum 150 words on moon.  Use counterpoint and character 

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Moon   Minimum 150 words on moon.  Use counterpoint and character 

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The one that’s featured in the close-up shot when the director presses the point that the love interest has been CHANGED and really is under the protagonist’s SPELL, finally making the longed-for gesture, received in their absence after an apparent repeat of an earlier heartwrenching walk of wretchedness.

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Little did they know, as they rounded the corner, still laughing about the sinkhole, that in the small empty space behind the passenger seat where the soup-pot should have been, a gecko blinked wearily, almost as though it could forsee the fallout they would spark by arriving at the hall without the promised soup, and was preparing itself for a shaky afternoon of sideways eye-rolling, tetchy children and snarled accusations, never really regretted.

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Little did they know, as they rounded the corner, still laughing about the sinkhole, that in the small empty space behind the passenger seat where the soup-pot should have been, a gecko blinked wearily, almost as though it could forsee the fallout they would spark by arriving at the hall without the promised soup, and was preparing itself for a shaky afternoon of sideways eye-rolling, tetchy children and snarled accusations, never really regretted.

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71 words

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Online PDF for reading :-)

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Page 162

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Page 161

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Gusto Notwithstanding

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Page 163

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Because I Love You - Masters Apprentices 1971 HQ Lyrics MusiClypz

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Dorothea Brande - 'Becoming a Writer' - p.3 of Introduction

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Dorothea Brande - 'Becoming a Writer' - p.3 of Introduction