Refund, Discount or Gesture of Goodwill by Jasmine Kahlia
Photo by Hasan Albari for Pexels
TW: Animal death, injury / CW: Strong language
“Well can I take this time out as annual leave instead, then?” Katy’s eyebrows furrowed and she was viciously drawing circles onto the Sky bill resting on the table. She flicked back her wavy, neat ginger hair in annoyance.
“I refuse to come back at the moment. It’s impossible to believe that I’ve worked here for over eight years and you cannot arrange this for me! I will be back on the 17th of July.”
Katy slammed her iPhone down on the table, and looked over at Beth.
“We’re going anyway. We need to do this. There’s so much shit to sort out today.” She exhaled. Dialled another number.
“This is Sky. Press one for broadband, press two for telephone or press three to speak to an advisor.” Katy pressed three.
After 15 minutes on hold, Katy got through to an advisor. “It’s unacceptable that the internet keeps dropping. I’m currently managing a situation and it’s unsatisfactory that every hour or so the connection drops for three minutes. I have international clients. I’d like a refund, discount, or gesture of goodwill. Sorry, what’s your name - and do you have an employee number? Okay, well thanks Gareth, you’ve been a brilliant help. I’ll call tomorrow if I keep experiencing this - even though I frankly do not have time to keep liaising with Sky to fix the goddamn broadband, which was advertised as high fibre, optic, full of vitamins, freaking flawless unbreakable broadband. Please put in my notes that I’d like to open a customer complaint. No, I don’t want to write an email, it’s inaccessible for me. I need to speak to a staff member that can fix my internet. I bet Gwyneth Paltrow doesn’t have insufficient internet.”
The Sky team member spoke. “Oh, of course you don’t know who Gwyneth Paltrow is! Next you’re gonna tell me you don’t know how to fix my fucking terrible internet.”
The team member spoke again. Katy leaned back in her chair, exasperated.
“No, I didn’t know you record and monitor all calls for quality purposes. Well, what did I say? The F word? Oh, Jesus Christ! Next you’re gonna tell me you’re a Jehovah’s witness and you’re offended by my religiously-loaded comment. Heads up - I’m gonna say the F word again. Fuck Sky!”
Katy sipped her cold coffee. She forgot to put milk in it, but she preferred the taste like this anyway. Beth noticed her lean muscles, tense underneath her spaghetti strap vest. Her hands were more raw than usual, as if she’d already punched the Sky representative.
Beth sighed. Katy was being irrational, and hard-headed. She’d already told the postman he was ‘fucking useless’ for ringing the bell for delivering a letter-sized package, and yesterday she left work early after calling her 22-year-old line manager a dickhead. She wasn’t often in this mood, and it seemed like there was no intervening. Katy aggressively tapped in the number that was on the back of a pasta sauce jar.
“Yes, hello? I’m calling, as I am dissatisfied with this jar of Loyd Grossman’s Arrabbiata sauce. It tastes nothing like an authentic Italian sauce. Yes, I’ll hold.” Katy tapped her pen on the table impatiently. “Too much garlic. I do have a social life, you know.” She paused to let the team member speak. “I’d like a refund, discount, or gesture of goodwill. Sorry, what’s your name - and do you have an employee number?”
Beth left the room to take a shower. Ever since the dog, Brodie, got hit by that Hermes van, Katy had been like this. They didn’t know what to do when they found his lifeless body. Do you call the police? Ambulance? Do you pick up the cadaver and chuck it in a hole?
*
After Katy’s accident, she had plunged into a deep period of isolation. Falling down the escalators at Brixton Station, not only did she find herself being laughed at and filmed by a massive group of teenagers, she also broke her left thumb and obtained a hairline fracture on her pelvis. A deep gash ran from her ear across her cheek. The scar left an impressionable mark on her, and on many that looked upon her.
Beth came home with a tiny puppy, a poodle, with smooth curls and a bright pink tongue, which made him look like he was always smiling. His brown fur was clean and fluffy to the touch. When she walked in Katy looked up, annoyed with Beth for opening the bedroom door, but as soon as she locked eyes with Brodie her heart melted. She fell in love with this impossibly cute little dog.
They went everywhere together, and after a few months Katy was ready to get back out into the world again. She brought Brodie to pubs, restaurants, to the park, everywhere possible.
Brodie picked her as his favourite companion; even Beth couldn’t take care of him in the way that Katy did.
*
As Beth walked back into the kitchen, Katy was hanging up on the Argos customer care line, fuming. “They can’t replace it because I didn’t pay for the product insurance. Pricks! They’re all fucking pricks!”
She burst into tears, never-ending, angry tears, her lean frame collapsing into a squat on the kitchen floor, slamming down onto the tiles.
“What the fuck? Why can’t they replace my MP3 player?”
Beth squatted and put an arm around Katy. “We can get a new one.”
“But we can’t get a new Brodie.” Katy gasped, swallowed, spat out an immeasurable quantity of tears. “Why did Brodie have to leave me? Why?”
“Why did my baby Brodie just die?”
Jasmine Kahlia
Jasmine Kahlia (they/them) is a Multidisciplinary artist, with work shown regionally in the UK, and internationally in Spain, Germany and USA. They often exhibit and perform in London, and occasionally in Barcelona, where they are also based.
Explore Jasmine’s work:
5 WAYS 2 RUN (short film)
ALL 4 1 (song)