Reportage: 05.09.7

With his finger hovering over his iPhone, he gave a fretful glance towards the hand disappearing away from the table.

The glass, full and with one perfectly formed droplet of latte slipping down its side, glided into place. The fern etched on top - this cafe's trademark, he'd been excitedly told - shivered slightly, but retained its shape.

Stop. 05.09.7. He sighed.

The red button went green, and gave him a nano-second of peace, before he picked up his pen.

The page, torn from its hefty, green-leather-backed folder, looked like it had been designed to map machines, or plot the way humanity could add A to B to improve the lot of C.

Instead, a line, almost perfectly straight, down the middle split the page into two. On the left, his how-to-review checklist. On the right, a precise series of ticks and crosses, against each entry.

He was twirling his blue biro between forefinger and thumb as if it was causing him pain; as if those extra few seconds before the coffee arrived had wounded him slightly, somehow.

He pulled his green and purple striped scarf tighter round him, and sighed again.