you stink!” Kylie said disgusted.
“Me? Stink? I don’t think so. But I don’t have a nose so I can’t tell. Though I do have an eye I can’t see out of.”
“Ripped off mate. Least you have a voice!”
“Yes, lucky I am to have a voice. All be it one that people usually run away from when I am heard. Look, I know it’s a bit arse about face but maybe we should chat more often?”
“Maybe, we’ll have to sort out an easier way Butt, my neck flamin’ hurts, I think I’m feeling a twitch?”
“Oh don’t start talking to her!”
“What? Who?” Kylie was confused.
“Forget it. Hey, I was just wondering, does my face make your arse look big?” Bum Face asked.
“As a matter of fact yes, you do look quite wide. Have you always been that elongated?” Kylie asked.
“No, I haven’t. I’ve been on an expansion project since you left the Isa. What’s up with you broadening my outlook?”
“What are you talking about, you cyclops? How was I supposed to notice you were getting bigger? I can’t see you! My eyeballs point this away! You are behind me! Shouldn’t you be keeping an eye on it?”
“I told you, I can’t see shit.”
“I can’t believe it, I’m harbouring a smart arse, that can’t see shit, but ironically hangs out with an arsehole every day.”
Bum Face burred up, “Who are you calling an arsehole? Shit Faced? Maybe if I wasn’t so BIG, you wouldn’t be so SINGLE!”
“Oh that’s bloody lovely. Kick me when I’m down,” Kylie said sniffling and wiping her nose on her forearm.
“I’m only being honest, you wouldn’t want me to lie to you would ya?”
“No, so I guess I arsed for that,” Kylie whimpered.
“Let’s make a deal, if you don’t make me the butt of all your jokes, I’ll help you get back your smaller Bum Face.”
“How are you going to do that?” Kylie asked, thinking her mind was in charge of her decisions, not her arse.
“I’ll have a chat with the gang in plumbing and colonics. If we work as a team, we might be able to move some stuff out of storage for you.”
“Really? You’d do that for me?”
“I’d love to. Plus it will help get rid of this acne I have on my Bum Face.”
“That ain’t acne,” said Kylie eyes wide open “That’s....”
“Don’t say it. Don’t say it. Don’t say it!” said Bum Face, afraid of the “C” word, cellulite.
“Oh okay. I’ll let you live in Egypt if you want. Seems like I have been!” said Kylie.
“What do you mean?” Bum Face asked.
“You’re living in De-Nile mate. Get it?”
“Oh dear!” Bum face seemed to frown.
“So? Where to from here?” Kylie took another sip of her drink.
“I’ll keep a blind eye on things back here until Lycra becomes your friend again, and maybe you could do me a favour?”
“Sure, anything for you Bum Face.”
“Wear some duds that are a size smaller than what you fit into, sometimes I get hungry but I don’t want to eat, it’s a bit like having some chewy, but please don’t wear anymore of those nasty G-Bangers, they give me a splitting headache!”
“Righto! It’s a deal, but wait, how will I lose the girth in your cheeks Bum face?”
“Far out love, do what everyone else does. Exercise, join a sport, eat a balanced diet! You do everything arse about face, the things you should have a little of, you have excessively and the amount of time you should spend outdoors, you spend indoors, it ain’t rocket science, you need to MOVE your arse to lose your arse!”
“No shit?”
“Wrong! You’ll also need to do that to help you shift kilos. But leave that with me. You need to make a start on the new you.”
Kylie looked at her watch. “It’s 6 am and I’m literally talking out of my arse. I don’t think we should be exercising right now.”
“Perhaps not now, but definitely tomorrow. Go and look out your window, what do you see?”
“It’s bloody dark,” said Kylie .
“Your front window, go and look out your front window and tell me, what do you see?”
Kylie walked to the window near the dining table and looked out towards the Strand. “Jeepers, someone opened up a can of fitness freaks. There’s flamin’ walkers, joggers, and there’s even people out on the water, in like, a long skinny boat.”
“I can’t see it Can-new?”
“Oh yeah, it is too!” Kylie said squinting to get a better look.
“Any of those ideas take your fancy?”
“There seems to be a few people stashed in that canoe, I might have a crack at that,” Kylie said as she sat down at the dining table.
“OW! You just sat on my face.”
“Sorry mate,” said Kylie but did not budge. She stared out the window at the glistening ocean and the faint sound of ‘Huts’ from the canoe teams was carried across the still water into her drunken ear space.
Kylie was exhausted. She fell asleep with her head in her right arm, then fell off the chair and onto the floor. There she lay until the midday sun woke her. With her eyes still firmly closed, she crawled into her bedroom and felt her way into her bed. Waking at 8 pm, she stumbled to the toilet, before going straight back to bed. She didn’t wake up until 6am the next morning, and it was clear that her agreement with Bum Face had kicked in, he had begun moving stuff out of storage for her. Since she was now awake, she decided not to go back to bed, but instead put on her exercise shorts, her socks and sandshoes, grabbed her hat, house keys and a 1.5 litre bottle of cold water and headed outside. It was a brand new day and she was ready to face it. Bum face came along for the walk too; he was just incognito under her shorts. With every step Kylie took, you could see the outline of him smiling.
Kylie felt alive, refreshed and reborn by the time she got back to her flat but received a rude shock when she opened the door. “Ughhhhht! Who made this friggin’ mess?” she asked, wondering who else had been in her flat the previous night. “Oh man, it was me,” she admitted, taking responsibility for the mess and for the cleanup operation. Empty coke bottles and cans and plastic cups were strewn all over the kitchen bench top, the dining room table and lounge room floor, open chip
