Page 14 of Break Room

I couldn’t fall asleep that night, of course, and stayed awake until dawn.

For reasons I couldn’t fully explain, I found myself wanting to talk to Monologue.

It wasn’t because I suspected him of being the mole, but rather because I felt a faint connection to him – a notion almost pathetically laughable, even to myself.

Yet, at that moment, I desperately needed to talk to someone, and he seemed like the right choice.

The break room before dawn felt like an entirely different place, a world apart from its usual self in the light of the day.

Over the past few days, everything had always been neatly tidied by the time I arrived in the morning, but now, traces of the previous night still lingered.

Tumbler and Cake’s cups sat unwashed on the counter, the sink was streaked with dark stains from a soggy rooibos teabag, and while the cabinet I’d hidden in looked fine at first glance, the moment I touched the door, the loose hinge wobbled precariously.

Inside, the cleaning supplies I’d knocked over in my frantic scramble to hide were still scattered untidily.

There stood Monologue, looking refreshed.

‘Hey, Monologue, uh . . .’ I stammered, my mind racing to find the right words. ‘I wanted to talk to you about something. I figured if I came early, I might catch you.’

The words tumbled out before I could organise my thoughts. I forced my sleep-deprived eyes, heavy from the restless night, to look as casual as I sounded – or at least as casual as I was trying to sound.

‘Did you open a hint about yourself?’

Monologue’s response caught me completely off-guard. I stared at him, blankly processing his unexpected words.

‘I’m sorry you did so,’ he said. ‘But right now, we just gotta do what has to be done.’

He stood on his tiptoes and reached towards the upper cabinets, unlocking a tiny padlock with a key. My eyes widened as I noticed the lock – something I’d never realised was there before. Looking closer, I saw it was identical to those used to secure our hint boxes.

‘Why are you using that lock here?’ I asked, pointing at it.

‘There aren’t enough drawers in my room,’ Monologue replied simply, pulling out a pair of rubber gloves and a scrubbing brush from the cabinet. Without hesitation, he grabbed more cleaning supplies from the lower cabinet, and began to tidy the break room in earnest.

He tied a green apron around his waist, slipped on the bright pink rubber gloves, and got to work. The rooibos teabag was wrung out and tossed away. The cups were washed and dried. The trash was emptied, and the recyclables were carefully sorted.

It wasn’t until I watched him in action that it dawned on me – every bit of post-filming clean-up I had assumed was handled by the crew had, in fact, been Monologue’s work all along.

‘Let me help,’ I offered, and without a word, Monologue nodded towards a shelf where an extra pair of gloves was neatly placed.

As he wiped down the counter, he suddenly broke the silence. ‘It’s awful, isn’t it? Finding out what people think of you. Normally, we never get to hear these things.’

‘I really didn’t know,’ I replied carefully, each word weighed before leaving my mouth. ‘Were you . . . were you aware of these things before you came here? I mean . . . did you know what others think of you?’ I added, treading cautiously, unsure if my question might strike a nerve.

‘Well, I only recently realised that some people just . . . know. They instinctively understand how they are perceived and what makes others like or dislike them.’ His words were as cryptic as ever.

He wrung out a wet cloth, gave it a shake, and stretched his back, his face glowing with a genuine sense of satisfaction from having accomplished his routine cleaning.

‘Is that why you do all this?’ I asked, summoning my courage. ‘To try and get along with people?’

He stopped and looked at me, a faint flicker of surprise in his eyes. ‘With just this?’ he asked. He shook his head. ‘Once you’ve lost too many points, no amount of extra points will ever help you catch up.’

After that, the details of our conversation blurred in my memory, mostly because my mind had begun spinning out of control. All I could recall was a single, unrelenting thought echoing in my head: This person must have been made up for the show. He must be a created character.

I let Monologue continue speaking, his words washing over me as I constructed an image of him: someone slightly detached from reality, a man who interacted with others in an overly precise, almost unnatural way.

Eventually, I decided to push the entire conversation out of my mind, settling on one conclusion: Monologue had to be the mole.

Only then did I feel the beginnings of a fragile peace.

The desire I’d once had for Monologue to be stranger than me shifted, and I began to wish he was entirely ordinary.

I wanted everyone here to be utterly blind to the truth; I wanted the people who’d labelled us both as strange to be the truly odd ones.

Then, maybe, I could be the normal one. I felt like a piece on an Othello board, flipping endlessly between black and white as my perceptions of the people around me shifted with every interaction.

Monologue finished cleaning and moved to the narrow space between the fridge and the wall, reaching for something hidden there.

To my surprise, it was the cleaning checklist, the one that had been on the fridge door on the first day.

Tumbler had examined it, flipping it over and holding it up to the light as if it might hold a secret.

Apparently, Monologue had tucked it away here, out of sight.

From his apron packet, Monologue pulled out a thick pen and began marking the checklist with rapid, deliberate strokes.

I glanced at the sheet from the side and was engulfed by an icy wave of unease – it was covered entirely in X marks.

Why? What did it mean? Why would someone go to the trouble of marking every single task with an X?

I realised Monologue was crossing out the boxes next to everyone’s name except his own; these, he had filled with bold circles.

I felt his pen pressed harder against the paper when he marked the others’ names with an X – though perhaps that was just my imagination.

I almost asked, ‘Wouldn’t most people ask others to help with cleaning, or at least leave the boxes of those who didn’t help blank rather than marking them with crosses? ’

As if reading my mind, Monologue stopped mid-mark and turned towards me.

‘Oh, almost forgot!’ he said lightly, flashing a quick smile.

And he changed a few of the Xs next to my name for today’s cleaning tasks into Os.

At that moment, I felt as though I was watching the exact mechanism by which he had gradually alienated himself from others – through these subtle, almost imperceptible misunderstandings.

The sincerity in his movements, juxtaposed with the unintended missteps that betrayed his intentions, left no room for doubt in my mind.

I instinctively knew – there was no way this was an act.

Yet, when Friday evening arrived, and it was time to officially submit my guess for the mole, I wrote down Monologue as my final answer, after much internal debate.

Still, a quiet, desperate thought lingered in the back of my mind: I wished that someone – anyone – would pick me as the mole. Just once, I wanted to be seen as something other than ‘the weird one’.