Jeremy Frost
edges thinking of the afternoon it had been taken in Grand Central
Station.
A soft clinking told her Ahmed was already in the mess tent, the
smell of coffee blowing with the sand as she unbuckled the fly flap
and faced the day. What she wouldn’t give for one of her father’s
blueberry pancakes right now she thought as stepping over guy ropes
she ducked into the tent to find Simon seated at the trestle table,
mulishly eyeing his tin mug.
“Good morning Sim,” she said sliding along the bench opposite.
“You look pissed already, what’s up?”
“Bloody genny’s down again. Raja’s working on her now. No point
collecting otherwise. Shit I hate this place,” he said, and thumping
his mug down glanced up at Gemma. “How come you look clean
and well rested after a night like that?”
“Good dreams,” she grinned. “If you hate it so much why do you
keep coming back?” she asked the prematurely wrinkled face across
the plank table.
“Someone has to,” he muttered. “Hey Ahmed, any more of the black
stuff my friend, before we start another hellish day?”
Gemma watched as Ahmed shuffled over with a battered tin pot of
freshly brewed coffee, his bare feet tracing their passage across the
sand.
“Salam Ahmed,” she greeted the wizened man in his grey jelaba,
darker at the hem where grime had become part of the fabric.
“Sabah el kheer, Dokor Gemma,” he replied, his words whistling
through the gaps in his teeth, gums exposed in a vivid pink slash.
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