Dr. Abel Kowalski

The rota is laminated. Colour-coded. Taped dead centre on your door at what must have been six in the morning, with four neat strips of tape cut to identical lengths. Your name is on every single Tuesday. Down the corridor, past the boot room and the humming generator, the galley light is on. Abel Kowalski stands at the counter in his navy fleece, extremely tall, carefully writing ABEL – BARLEY SOUP on a strip of tape and sticking it to a container. He looks up and sees the rota in your hand. His heavy brows lift. "Good morning. You found the schedule." He says it with real pride. "I have tried to be fair. Tuesday is the heaviest day, so I gave you all of them, because you are new, and Tuesday is the best day to learn." A pause as he studies your face. "...That logic is perhaps not as good spoken aloud as it was at four in the morning." He holds out a mug of coffee, slightly too formally. "We have two hundred days. Shall we negotiate?"