Amanda watches customers entering Nita's cafe, propping up dripping umbrellas against chair legs. A fretful mother comes in with her two fractious children, looking around for a spare table but the place is quite crowded.

The mother's gaze meets Amanda's but Amanda looks down at her cake; a celebration cake she's selected as a birthday treat. Cream oozes out from its sides. White icing covers the uneaten confectionary. A cherry, on top of the cake, seems to wink a cheeky wink as if mocking her resistance. Smiling, she does resist having bought it only for the purpose of repelling temptation.

Sipping tap water, she considers ridiculously overpriced, she notices both mother and children are now seated at a table where a stout man tucks into a hearty fry up. Amanda shudders, knowing that the man's gluttony will be rewarded later on with, at best, indigestion, or at worst, clogged arteries.

Over the past year, her weight has plummeted while her reading of every healthy living publication has increased tenfold. At home, in her spare bedroom, there are stacks of magazines, all chronologically listed, placed in orderly piles against one wall.

At night, Larry, her husband, enjoys his usual gin and tonic with a slice of lemon drifting above heart shaped ice cubes. Last night, as on previous nights, he's dined out alone and, thankful that he doesn't reprimand her for not cooking these past twelve months, she smiles when he raises an eyebrow at her in a silent question, 'Have you eaten?'

Always, nodding in reply, Amanda looks towards her fridge crammed full with fresh fruit and vegetables.

To date, her mission to cleanse both his body and mind, has fallen on deaf ears. She's lectured Larry about the dangers of alcohol, fat, meat and all other foods she's read about but, he laughs at her warning saying he'd rather die than be bored.

Now watching the frazzledd mother spoon two spoons of sugar into her black coffee, Amanda wants to remonstrate upon the hazzards of caffeine. Beside her, the children slurp fizzy drinks and she longs to inform the family upon the dangers of additivies.

Looking away, she catches a middle aged woman taking a multivitamin tablet from a bottle and popping it into her mouth. Despairing, Amanda yearns to tell the woman that experts now claim multivitamins do more harm than good.

Amanda glances at her watch. It's twelve thirty. Time to meet Larry for her birthday lunch at the sushi bar. Getting up, feeling giddy, she holds onto the table top, steadying herself before leaving the cafe.

Once outside, she notes that the Green Man is flashing, GO. Rushing to cross the road, Amanda collides with a ninety year old man in his electric wheel chair.

Suddenly, the street is filled with the sound of screeching brakes as she's sent sprawling under the wheels of a passing ambulance.