There’s no point in having sharp images when you have fuzzy ideas, I say.

You’re not Jean-Luc Godard, says Tom. And this is journalism, not art.

Me, I’m looking around the office. I catch Michael’s eye as he looks up from his computer. His eyes widen and his mouth spreads to the bottom corners of his face.

Michael is the only other East Asian in the office, and I spend my days resenting him, resenting his presence.

Because the two of us working here among these white people means we get lumped together. But Michael is a try-hard plonker, it’s embarrassing, and for true, I don’t want to be lumped in with him.

I am nothing like him.

I’m not gonna lie though, the sympathy kind of makes me feel better. He is a dick, but even dick sympathy can make you feel grateful when you’ve fallen into a deep pile of shit with no way to climb out.

They’re not that soft, I say, picking up a fuzzy picture of a police officer pinning a woman down to the ground. In her hand is a placard saying… Nope, I can’t make it out.

Wait. FAIR PENSIONS FOR ALL. That’s what it says.

What a fucking disaster, says Tom, leaning on the table, looking at me sideways.

The veins in his temple pulse a Morse code at me.

He says, We can’t use any of these.

He sighs, and puts the end of his pen in his mouth and chews.

At this point, I have no idea what to do. So I just stand there, watching him.

Jane!

The volume of his bark makes me jump clean out of my skin.

See what Reuters have got on this public sector strike. We need pictures to go with Michael’s copy, ASAP.

Jane looks hassled as hell, but nods and gets busy on her computer.

Jesus Christ, says Tom. This is the third assignment in a row where you’ve come back with substandard pictures.

No playing, I was drowning. My first big gig as a photojournalist and I’d fumbled my way through assignment after assignment.

Not enough coverage, pictures filed late, soft, out-of-focus frames.

Global readership plus millions of eyeballs equals big pressure, you know?

Tom here had seen something in me, taken a chance, and I’d proven him completely, utterly wrong.

He says, Sean, you’ve got an incredible eye. The way you capture emotional stories in one single frame is remarkable.

I mean that, he says.

But maybe a local paper might be more suitable for you right now, he says.

I’m thinking, A local paper? Fuck that.

I say, Tom, please. Next assignment, every picture will be tack sharp.

He says, Sorry, Sean.

He collects my shitty, spread-out photographs into a neat pile, taps them against the glass table to get them nice and neat, and then hands them over to me.

I take them from him, I don’t even look him in the eye. Partly due to how pissed off I am, mostly due to how ashamed I feel for having done such a terrible job for the guy.

My guts were turning, my ears burning.

I’d never been fired from a job in my life.

I’d never been shit at anything in my life. I know this, because I have actively spent my life avoiding anything I’ve sucked at.

This. This is what happens when you go out of your comfort zone. You get sacked.

On the way out the office, my stupid stack of photographs in my hand, I pass Michael’s desk. He gives me the same look again.

I tell him he looks like a retarded pug and that he can stuff his stupid, ugly face up his puckered arsehole.

T

HIRTY

-T

HREE

The day before I get my cast off, and I’ve just finished watching my new favourite soap opera. (The male lead found out that the female lead’s stepmum was pimping her out and flushed all her alcohol down the toilet! And then he whisked the female lead off and away! We’re only mid-season though, so I haven’t got my hopes up.)

Next on the Sean-stuck-in-an-apartment-with-a-broken-leg itinerary: checking in on the neighbours.

I get comfy in the chair I’ve set up on the terrace specifically for this activity (I’ve got a nice side table so I can put a drink on it and everything), and I pick up my camera.

There’s the young mother and baby, tickling and giggling.

There’s the guy practising wing chun on his wooden dummy.

There’s the woman who’s normally sitting at her desk, tapping away at her computer. Sure enough, she’s typing.

Wait, now she’s reading what she’s written, and now she’s stood up with the laptop in her hands and – oh, she’s smashing the laptop onto her desk, over and over and over again. It looks like she’s screaming (although it’s hard to say, her hair’s covering most of her face). Now she’s dropped the obliterated computer and is slumped on the desk with her head in her arms. Yikes.

The young couple, they’re nowhere to be seen, which is a shame, because now Mia has lobbed a grenade onto our relationship, I weirdly want to watch a happy, functioning couple go about their lives together.

I carry on moving the lens to the left across the building, and pick a random window with someone inside it.