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A novella in 21 chapters
The Plot: Chapter 1
Rituals
Leah
It was Uschi’s turn for the school run. Leah had an hour to herself.
There’d been a cancellation, so her first case, a tricky fractured molar, wasn’t until ten. If she left the house at nine fifteen, she calculated, she should avoid the worst of the school drop-off traffic.
She’d treat herself to a second coffee. A proper one. Sit in the quiet kitchen, catch up on the agenda for the evening’s council meeting.
She enjoyed the rituals that surrounded her old stove-top espresso pot. Unscrewing the base; checking the gasket and filter; filling the reservoir with water to just below the valve; inserting the funnel; tamping down the fine-ground coffee; enjoying its nutty aroma in anticipation of a steaming, bitter cup of blackness. Setting it on the stove and waiting for that delicious throaty bubbling, the final hiss of steam.
They’d been given one of those capsule machines. A wedding present from Uschi’s older sister. It sat there on the bench, its metallic red plastic a parody of the enamelled Art Deco monsters which hulked and hissed in many a Melbourne coffee shop.
It had wifi and Bluetooth.
