Speaker.

1. "Mr Everett"

A highlighter, a small pair of scissors, 'The Age' and a tall black with three sugars. Every Sunday that’s what Mr. Everett would order to his reserved table at the back of The Quarter Café in Degraves Street. Sunday morning was one of the busiest time for the cities cafés, but the owner had known Mr. Everett for many years and reserved his table anyway. He would sit there, week after week, reading the newspaper and cutting out all sorts of articles – “Pampered Pooch Pilfered”, “CEO Pay Rise Angers Management” “Arson Suspected in Warehouse Blaze” – from burning shipping warehouses to kidnapped dogs, he’d simply highlight names, cut them out and put them in a manilla envelope.

His face was expressionless, the only times he seemed to have a soul at all was when he was appraising each cup of coffee. A slight smile or disapproving brow-furrow, nothing more crossed this old mans wrinkled face. He never seemed to speak to the waitresses, simply motioned his empty cup for a refill. Every few weeks or so a small boy would come by with a plain white envelope. Mr Everett would hand the boy a $20 bill, he would nod, smile, run out and disappear into the morning rush. This peculiar event happened often enough that the waitresses started talking amongst themselves. Maybe it’s his grandson? Maybe he’s the son of a bike courier? Maybe the poor boy is homeless and Mr Everett pays him to deliver his mail? Nobody truly knew much about Mr Everett, as the owner once said “Mr. E has always been a bit of a mystery”, at least before chuckling to himself.

Today happened to be one of the days the small boy made a delivery. A plain white envelope held in his tiny fingers, dirty enough to leave a smudge when Mr Everett took it and replaced it with a red bill from his breast pocket. The boy smiled behind a messy fringe which hid his eyes in such a way that nobody could tell where he was looking, he turned and disappeared as he always did, melting into the bustling foot traffic outside the café. Mr Everett took his scissors and sliced open the top of the envelope, emptying into his hand a business size card with a black crescent moon printed on one side of the thick white card, the other side had written by hand in lead pencil “19 A D”

He slid the card into his the breast pocket of his battered leather coat, the sort of brown you’d expect on 80’s car interiors, turning back to his newspaper, cutting out an article entitled “Wesfarmers Shares in Dispute”. He laid the article on the table next to his coffee cup and highlighted a name. “soon-to-be Miss Michelle West”, slid it in the envelope with the others and took a sip from the cup.