Green Kauri Comics · Story 001
Not a Loss
A story about financial pressure, dignity and who really bears the cost of kindness.
Story 001
When a number becomes a choice.
When a café’s cash buffer falls to eleven days, Max finds an obvious cost to cut. Robyn asks him to look again.
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At closing time in Ted and Robyn’s neighbourhood café in New Brighton, Christchurch, Max discovers that the business has only eleven days of cash left. The numbers are real, but so are the people behind them.
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Panel 1 — Eleven days
Max reviews the café’s cash flow. The page shows two unpaid costs: community meals, $312, and Max’s accounting fee, $480. He circles the community meals and says, “This line has to go.” Robyn looks at the same page and replies, “I see two.”
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Panel 2 — Who pays?
The cash-flow graph falls towards Friday’s wages. Max says, “Kindness won’t cover Friday’s wages.” Robyn places his red pen between the community meals and his own fee. “So decide who pays for it,” she says. Cutting a cost is no longer an abstract decision; someone must carry it.
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Panel 3 — The red pen stops
Max prepares to cross out the meals, then remembers standing at a supermarket checkout as a child while his mother put bread back because they could not afford it. Kauri waits quietly. Max leaves only a red dot on the page.
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Panel 4 — Not free, but chosen
The next morning, the community meals are marked KEEP. Max gives the café a one-month credit of $312 against his $480 fee. Robyn tells him, “You need this money.” Max answers, “I remember.” He has not solved the café’s future, but for this month he chooses to bear the cost himself.
We often call our own suffering reality. Growth begins when we stop asking others to suffer it too.
- Characters
- Max, Robyn, Kauri and Kiwi
- Setting
- New Brighton, Christchurch, New Zealand
- Themes
- Empathy, dignity, financial pressure and breaking cycles of suffering
- Published