ephemeral // matty healy

coffee bits

It was nearly midnight when Ronan left the flat. They watched three movies, but Blair fell asleep for some of the last half of 2001: A Space Odyssey. When Ronan looked over and saw Blair collapsing onto the arm of the couch, he thought it would be best to gently wake her up and excuse himself from the building.

The next morning, they were both groggy, but Blair came into the office with an extra coffee for Ronan.

"Thanks for part one of our marathon. Same time tonight?" Ronan nodded excitedly.

"Any excuse to geek out over nerdy movies."

Blair smiled at him and then sat down at her desk. She noticed that she received quite a few emails from Matty. At first, she thought it was just from management, but all of them were signed with a simple 'm', and she knew that it was just him bouncing ideas into her.

Every subject was different and there were eight emails sent in total.

Her brows furrowed. He was moving in a less coherent direction than last time and hacked into the management's email to tell her.

"Hey, what do you do when your client is freaking out?"

Ronan answered without taking his eyes away from the monitor. "I don't know, they'll be fine, probably. Just ask them what they would like changed or something."

"No, you don't get it, they just met with me yesterday." Blair read more phrases like "radically political" and "pretentiously understated" then pinched the bridge of her nose.

"Oh, you mean that it's ..."

"Yes," she whined. Blair leaned back in her chair and held her coffee in her hands. She needed a break before her workday started. "He's so lost that he doesn't even know where to begin."

Another new message in her inbox.

"He won't stop!" Ronan looked over his computer with a sympathetic look.

She pulled herself back to her desk when she got to the grounds in her coffee. She held her breath and clicked Matty's most recent email.

Could we grab lunch this afternoon? I have some more ideas for the video and I'd really like to catch up.

mh

Fucking hell, she thought. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuckity fuck fuck.

She opened her reply and typed a swift message.

I think that would be a good idea, looks like there are many ideas to go over. You, Jamie and I should get lunch at a place down the street, they have good coffee grub but bad coffee. Let's shoot for 12.

Blair pressed send even though she debated on clearing the desk and throwing her computer out the window, to shatter into the street below.

"Maybe I should just give up and move back to New York. He's already giving me a headache," Blair admitted.

"I think it's the coffee, I feel like I have to chew it." Ronan made a face and then pushed the cup to the other side of the desk.

"My bad, sorry. I just got to the grounds too."

-

Blair waited inside the café for Jamie and Matty. It was already twenty past, but she thought that they might have gotten caught up in something else. With a slight grumble, she ordered at the register and took her panini back to the table.

Just as she settled in to take a bite, Matty rushed in with sweat upon his brow.

"Jesus! I'm so sorry I'm late!" He sat across from her and didn't address the fact that he had come in alone.

"It's not a problem. Where's Jamie?"

"He wasn't able to make it, got hung up somewhere." He sat with a smug look on his face for a moment but batted it away quickly.

"If he isn't coming then I can say this," Blair swatted Matty on the arm. "If you ever keep me waiting again, I'm dropping this project." He raised his arms in surrender and rolled his eyes. "I saw your emails... all of them. I'm just finding it really hard to get a grasp on what you want exactly."

"Me too, actually." Matty rubbed the back of his neck for a moment. He quickly ordered a latte from a passing worker. "I think I have an idea for it but it might be sort of weird. I want to get your opinion."

"I'm all ears," she said through a bite of her panini.

"So, I want this video to be like taking a break from social media, but at the same time, being completely and utterly immersed in it. Like when famous people say 'Oh, that six-hour log off was really good for my head and my soul'. It doesn't really matter in the end because it's all ubiquitous, this media is all so-" he struggled for the word.

"Social?" Blair put down her sandwich and gave him a blank look. "Can we just pretend like this story has an ending sometime soon?"

"Let me finish, alright?" His latte was placed on the table and he took a quick sip, then grimaced. "The video starts out with someone 'logging off', right? But the internet never really leaves them. All the stupid and cringe-y stuff they laughed at three years ago is still there. I want to be a bit Big Brother-ish in a sense."

I'm gonna kill him, Blair thought to herself. I'll kill him and make it look like an accident.

"Okay, well that sounds like a very good idea, I'll run it past my coworker and see what he thinks about it. The bigger your ideas get, the more time I think I'm going to need." She started to get up to leave, but Matty placed an open hand on the table.

"Please stay, you haven't even finished your food." Blair sighed. She was still mad at him, and the fact that he was here alone with her made her even more frustrated.

"Fine."

"Can we catch up a bit?"