The Challenge: Something (or someone) from the main character's past comes back to bite them in the ass

MUST INCLUDE: At least one family member, Must use the words: faecal, sacrosanct, sleuth, obscene, peanut butter, unicorns, high fructose corn syrup, One character must quote a line from a famous poem/book/movie/song and Must include an awkward moment or unresolved sexual tension.

Phew...it's long and it's...well I don't know what it is, really! I hope you enjoy!

Xx

Orphan? Cute, hungry, freckled singing kids with watery eyes and big hearts are orphans, not a chubby little boy staying at his friend’s place for the weekend while his parents are away.

‘They took a tour over that winery in a tiny plane for their anniversary and there was an engine malfunction’, Ed’s mother explained to Rhys through a voice deepened with solemnity, ‘a freak accident.’

The boy nodded at the details, fiddled with his pyjama sleeves and folded himself up on the couch. The word ‘orphan’ didn’t taste right. He asked Ed if they could finish watching the movie the news had interrupted.

When my best friend and housemate presents his poster to me, disbelief ties a rope to my jaw and yanks it down. Hard.

I stand face-to-face with an A3 version of myself sitting on the doormat of our house, hung-over beyond recognition and laughing at something while Ed tested out his new camera. Yes, it’s just his advertising assignment and only his class will see it, but his chosen campaign is mental illness. The eerie grey-blue shadows he computer-manipulated creates black circles around my eyes and delivers a cold, urban atmosphere to the image. The corny slogan, in a solid orange font reads: ‘It’s lonely inside your head alone, so why do it on your own?’

“Photoshop is my gimp” He announces proudly. “Well, besides Carys.”

Carys being our friend from high school, Ed’s girlfriend, and our third housemate.

There are many positives to living in student housing within five minutes walking-distance from uni. You can get up fifteen minutes before a class and be roughly punctual. You can watch the men’s soccer team run past your living room window during fitness training (Or, as Ed and I call it, my masturbatory-material conscription).You can also go and get good coffee when Carys refuses to make any, which is today’s unfortunate circumstance.

Yawning into my fist, I lazily approach the coffee-counter at the only decent yet least occupied café on campus and wait to be served by him. Kirby.

“You’re Ed’s friend, right?” He asks me, feint traces of his British accent tweaking some of his vowels. His dark hair is pulled into a barely-existent, inane ponytail and rogue waves dangle around tired eyes

You were at my house working with Ed last week, I am your film theory lecture and, and we do the acknowledge-nod! You know, the type you give people at uni that you aren’t friends with but don’t hate? The acknowledge-nod. I fiddle with one of the strings from my hood, twisting it around my finger and cutting off circulation.

“Yep, that’s me.” You dumb-playing narcissist.

He squeezes out a sponge and wipes down the bench between us.

“Knew it. So how are you, Cam?”

What? I feel my face scrunch in awe at his aloofness.

He sighs, a half-grin tugging at the left corner of his lips. “What do you want, Rhys?”

To kick you in the pants.

“Long black please.”

He jumps straight into my order and I linger with my hand on the counter while he resumes chatting over the giant, glistening coffee machine.

“Sorry, Ed told me you hate when people forget your name. Said I’d get a good reaction out of it. Do you mind-”

“-not at all, I can take a joke. Relax.” is my response, growing a little more self- confidence. I even lean on the bench with my elbow in an uncharacteristically smooth gesture. I pull my sleeves over my hands to conceal their slight pudginess.

“Ok. But uh, I meant, do you mind standing in the waiting area over here?”

I snap upright and step across, feigning pre-occupation with my phone until I seize my coffee and steal over to the stirring station.

With my house keys in my right hand I rip open two sugar sachets, thieving a few extras for our home supply, and pour them into the black pool of mandatory caffeine.

Next thing I know, he’s standing next to me and adding sugar to perfect his own coffee. My head swivels around to see a mousey girl working behind the counter and then back to him.

He shrugs. “Shift finished.”

The empty sachets clunk when I chuck them in the bin. Wait. Clunk? I open my hand and the packets are still in there which means…

“Rhys, did you just…”

“My keys! Shit!”

I peer into the bin and wonder why it seems like some sacrosanct protocol to have a banana peel sitting on the top of every pile of garbage as a garnish to some diseased dinner.

Before I have the chance to psych myself up for the dive, Kirby removes the lid from the bin, shoves his hand in and retrieves my keys. He dangles them for me to catch but I hastily retract my hands behind my back.

“Don’t give them to me yet, dude. Wash them when you wash your hand!”

He looks down at his hand.

“What? This hand?” He asks innocently and smears his palm across my cheek before I spring back at the obscene gesture and nearly lose my footing over the bin. I punch him in the arm. Hard. He winces mid-cackle.

“Alright, alright! I’ll just duck out the back and wash up. Wait here.”

The genius has left his coffee unattended. Think quick, Rhys. Spit? A primitive technique, maybe, but it’s all I’ve got on short notice.

He returns, carrying a hat, and collects his updated coffee. He nods at me to go, pushes the door and holds it open for me. I let it slide. He steps out after me in a cavalier fashion, placing his grey fedora on his head and pulling a scarf around his neck. Now he looks like the guy I sit near in my lecture and try not to stare at.

“So, um, where are you off to now, Kirby?” Weak attempt at conversation.

He holds up my keys. “Ed’s designing opening-titles for my film project.”

I almost feel guilty when he swigs the coffee. Almost.

Rhys, at first, hated his new room at his Grandmother’s house even though she had tried to mimic his old one as much as possible. He didn’t complain because Gram-Gram would probably tell him to suck it up. She liked to play the classic practical jokes on him, short-sheeting his bed and switching the salt with the sugar. He eventually returned these to her and their pranks grew more elaborate over the years he lived with her. He grew accustomed to her smell of talcum powder, apples and warm bread. The place transformed itself into a home.

When he turned eighteen, Gram-Grams refused to let Rhys stay and look after her. Even when she was diagnosed with lung cancer two years later, she would only allow him to visit her when his homework was completed. So of course, he would lie.

A week of unfinished assignments slips by and for the first time in over a month, the three of us eat breakfast together at our little fold out table in the living room (Space is an invaluable commodity in our house). My peanut butter toast doesn’t usually get washed down with silence, though.

I look at Ed, who is actively avoiding eye contact with me.

“What’s up, buddy?” I ask him.

Carys giggles behind her newspaper.

“Can’t look at you right now.” He replies stiffly, spooning up globs of cereal and then watching the milk and weet-bix slop back into his bowl.

“Why not?”

“Because…you. Fix your face.”

“Huh?”

Carys folds her newspaper down and rests it on her lap so I can see the mischief in her expression when she claims, “I dreamt of racing trained unicorns in the Melbourne Cup last night. What did you dream of, Edmund?” in a sing-song voice.

No reply. My patience is usually short in the morning but watching Ed squirm like this, for whatever reason, is just too delicious.

“Well, I’ll cut a long story short ‘cause I have a bullshit naturopathy lecture about the pros and cons of products like high fructose corn syrup.” She stands up and collapses her picnic chair. Yes, there is some superb furniture in this place. “Rhys, Ed moaned your name in his sleep last night. Even though he denies it, I think he had a sex dream about you. Now you have something more interesting than your own faecal discoveries to discuss today. See you, boys.”

She smacks an audible, theatrical kiss good-bye on an unimpressed Ed’s cheek with no trace of insecurity before leaving the house. Ed and Carys are the kind of pair that were married long before they even fell in love.

My jaw hurts from grinning so smugly at my best friend whose entire face has morphed into a crimson mask of humiliation.

“So…” I finally utter after an excruciatingly long silence, “was I any good?”

His middle finger replies.

Just remember love, things only depress you if you let them. There is always a funny absurdity to even the darkest of moments in life. Save your tears for rarities.

Uni, although seemingly a vast place, can sometimes be a claustrophobically small one too. This is how I find myself strolling around the on-campus Student Design and Fine-Arts Exhibition with Kirby. Students mumbling above some album where every track sounds the same and the squeaking of my sneakers fill the little building, and all I seem to be doing is sleepwalking alongside an experience-hungry enthusiast. He walks through the space with a confident, no-fuss grace about him, hands shoved deeply into the realm of the pockets on his chequered pants. His pants are held up with a patterned neck-tie threaded through where his belt should be and I wonder if this was an aesthetic decision or if he had actually lost his belt.

I pause, taking out my glasses to read the artists’ pretentious intention of a piece I could’ve painted in kindergarten.

“Do you usually wear glasses?” My companion asks.

“When I’m not lazy. Just for reading and stuff.”

“I like them. They make you look…peculiar.”

Not ‘cool’ or ‘smart’. Peculiar?

“I don’t know whether I should be thanking you or punching you in the face.” I answer.

“No, no. It’s a good thing. Better than being commonplace. Strangeness grows into the sort of beauty that stuns you to your core more than something that is simply attractive to look at. It’s how I grow to love things. I fall in love with intrigue, in whatever shape or form.”

I had ceased walking during his little rant, and only when he notices my lack of verbal response does he spin around to discover that I’m metres behind him. I love watching people when they are so deep into a spiel that they forget you’re there next to them. He walks back to me smiling.

“Sorry, I tend to get carried away. I think it comes with people questioning my lack of sexual preference and whatnot.”

Our voices echo down the emptier end of the exhibition building. I stroke the spiky, scratchy beginnings of a beard on my face with my hand to hopefully cover heated cheeks. Really, what am I expected to say to that?

I ask him what he likes to do other than create films to manipulate a topic change.

“Well, I tap dance.”

An unwanted snicker clogs my throat and I swallow it back down upon noticing his quizzical glance.

“Sorry, Kirby. I just had this image of you amongst a bunch of eight year old girls in pink leotards.”

His face falls. “Yes, I guess Gregory Hines, Gene Kelly, and Bill ‘Bojangles’ Robinson, are all pretty girly.”

He strides ahead, hardly looking at the artworks. I’ve offended him. I have no idea how to correct this since I’m not usually around people that take things to heart so easily.

“Why aren’t you in any other film classes?” He enquires dryly when I catch up to his pace.

“It’s an elective. I do a health/arts double degree focusing on psychology.”

The petrol light flashes ‘empty’ on our conversation.

I impulsively reach out and touch his arm, expecting him to shrug me off. Instead, he spins around and confronts me. Should I leave my hand there, or is that creepy?

“Hey I’m…sorry…you know…about the tap-dancing thing. Not the fact that you do it I mean, but, what I said.”

Move your hand, damn it. But now if I move it, attention will be drawn to its presence.

“It’s fine, Rhys, it just…hit a bit close to home. That’s all. It’s nothing.”

He provides a forced a little wink on top of his side-smirk to lighten the mood but the shadowy clouds linger in his eyes. I finally remove my hand and ‘casually’ scratch an imaginary itch at the back of my head while pointing at a poster I have no interest in to break the awkward moment. Idle chatter sneaks its way back into our silence as we proceed through the exhibition.

Then he stops.

To my mortification, on the display wall in double the original size, is Ed’s poster.

“Well I may tap dance, but at least I’m not a poster-boy for mental illness.”

I grow aware of Kirby’s hand on the small of my back, above the belt on my jeans and it feels…well, I don’t hate it.

That’s when my phone rings.

Of course I cried when Grandpa died and when we lost your parents, Rhys, but I started to think of the way your Grandfather used to cheat during Chess or your father’s inability to do up a tie and the tears stopped stinging because I was smiling.

Ok. Cake tin. Cake tin. Arm tiring out as it stirs the thick, yellow mixture in the bowl. There’s a knock at my door and I slam the bowl down to answer it. Kirby.

“Ed’s not home.” I inform flatly, stalking back into the kitchen to resume mixing, stranding him in my doorway.

“I just came to…Wow.”

He halts when he observes my kitchen. Plates of muffins, cakes, cookies and slices fill every inch of bench space. My bake-good colony.

I scrape the spoon against the side of the bowl. “You just came to what?”

“Well, Ed told me the news and I wanted to express my…do you want help or anything?”

“I’m fine. Is that all?”

He rolls up his sleeves, enters my territory and turns on the tap in the sink.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Your dishes.”

I flick the tap off and stand square in front of him.

“I told you I’m fine.”

“Fort Heart-attack says otherwise.”

“It gives me something to do.”

He takes the spoon out of my hand, reaches over and squeezes my shoulder.

“I am honestly sorry for your loss, Rhys.”

I smack his arm off me.

“You didn’t know her.”

Then his eyes fade away as he pushes past me to the sink, scrubs my dishes in silence, and then leaves the house.

Cupcake time.

-----*----*-----

Warm, sunny weather feels all wrong for a funeral. You always expect that it’s going to be pelting with rain and that an abyss of greyness is the only fitting weather for grief. The hours and people seem to move around me while my body takes over my actions and my mind stays numb. The church is packed. Gram-Grams would’ve despised the formality of it all.

“That guy looks like a dolphin.” Ed whispers to me during one of the hymns.

“Shut up.” I hiss.

“No, really, look. He looks like a fuckin’ dolphin.”

I look at the man perched on a side-pew, then straight at the roof, breathing in deeply so as not to laugh. His elongated nose, beady eyes and pushed-back hairline certainly did give him a…dolphin-esque…appearance. Could I not be mature for one day in my life?

“His lady is quite attractive though.”

I try to defend the guy. “He’s probably the sweetest man in the world.”

“Geez, how do they bang? Like, does he just thrash around on top of her making dolphin noises?”

Stop it, stop it stop it. I’m breathing in deep, pregnant-lady breaths and I know that if I look at how seriously Ed is saying this I will lose it.

The faintest dolphin cry leaks from the back of his throat.

“Shhh!” I whisper-chide. “This is Gram-Grams funeral and you’re talking about fucking Flipper over here flailing around in the passionate throes of marine coitus?”

I catch his eye and my smirk comes out of my nose. I instantly bury my face in Ed’s shoulder, my body shaking as I try not to laugh audibly. I can feel Ed’s chest moving with his deep breaths to contain his own laughter while patting my back to give the impression that I’m sobbing.

I know what he’s done.

It’s what she would’ve wanted.

Once the hymn and the eulogy conclude, Aunt Sandy draws the guests’ attention to the projector screen that has been running looped photos of Gram-Grams throughout the service. The funeral director presses ‘play’ on a remote.

Gram-Grams smiles at everyone from the other side of the screen. She’s in her favourite chair in the house I grew up in. A half-eaten biscuit lies on a plate on the side-table while she cradles a pillow on her lap, just as she always does. She’s wearing her monkey brooch – she has the kookiest collection of brooches you’d ever witness. When was this made? It had to be recently.

She looks the same as when I saw her last week. This is stupid. She’s not in that box at the front. No one is.

Tears remain in my throat, still unable to cry them out.

“Is it on?” She asks the camera.

“Yes, Elsie.”

It’s Ed’s voice! I want to ask questions but his attention is occupied by the screen. Sleuth work will commence tomorrow.

“You could have bloody told me it was on, Edmund.”

“I said that the red light meant ‘action’.”

“I’m seventy-nine, how much action do you think you’re gonna get out of me?”

People let out sniffily giggles.

“Fine, Elsie, when I say ‘go’, you can talk, Alright?”

“Can I just talk now? And you can ‘edit’ it out, dear?”

“Go ahead.”

Gram-Grams shuffles in her seat and surveys us all.

“Hi there. Family, friends, and polite people. By now, even the slower ones of you would probably guess that I’m not around anymore.” She draws in a staggered breath. “I adore each of you and I sincerely hope that you are not wearing black today.”

The room is filled with black clothing. I’m wearing a black suit. I feel sick.

“I want you to all know that there was not a single day in my life that wasn’t worth waking up for. I am excited to see what shenanigans my husband has been getting up to in heaven, and I’ll get to play hearts with my son and daughter-in-law again. I’ve got some new moves since we last played.”

Ed squeezes my arm. Mum and Dad.

“And before I go, there’s one more matter I must attend to. Rhys.”

People look at me with what I assume is the identical face to mine. A face that blatantly says: what the hell?

“Rhys, the youngest and cheekiest of my grandchildren, didn’t I always promise that I would get you good even if I didn’t make it to your twenty-first birthday to do so?”

It never even struck me that she wouldn’t be there, in three months time to celebrate with me. I lift my hand to my mouth and squeeze my bottom lip between my fingers and I can feel the tears move up a little higher. Carys, on the other side of me, gently rests her hand on my knee.

The screen cuts to some old footage of a nine-year-old me and my jaw hangs open. I’ve never seen this film, but I know what happens. I know that day. Grandpa was filming that day in Gram-Gram’s backyard. Dressed in a leather jacket and standing next to a big plastic car, I watch myself ruthlessly rip a comb through my slicked back hair and launch into singing ‘Greased Lightning’ with dance moves included. During my song, Gram-Gram’s stupid little mutt Buckley scuttles up and chomps on the leg of my jeans. I fall onto my ass trying to kick him off. I then turn onto my stomach and try to crawl from him and as I’m making an escape, he is actually pulling my jeans off to reveal Power Rangers briefs. In my rage, I decide to go and fight for my jeans. Dad, sporting an apron and barbeque tongs runs onto the screen and collects the dog in his arms, my jeans hanging from its mouth. The camera moves over to the corner where my mother, Gram-Grams and Aunt Sandy are in stitches with my four cousins sitting on the grass in front of them, rolling around. My mum waves at the camera and tells Grandpa to direct it back to the action. With determination in each step, I storm back to the car and finish the song pant-less before running off screen.

Touché, Gram-Grams.

The church echoes with a laughter that slices through tear-soaked relatives and friends.

“She burned you beyond the grave. It’s a classy move.” Ed mumbles next to me.

I smile at him. “When?”

“She called me and made me promise not to tell you. I got Kirby to edit it and adapt the old footage.”

The noise eerily dies down when Gram-Grams favourite song, ‘Don’t Worry Baby’ by the Beach Boys rings throughout the church. It was time for her to go. I breathe out heavily, my body collecting itself and pulling me along to join my cousins and uncle around the casket. I take my handle of the coffin and lurch it up onto my shoulder, humming with the song the entire walk down the aisle. I spot Kirby standing up at the back amongst the late-comers, holding his hat across his chest, and I offer him a gracious little smile. My eyes sting. Gram-Grams would approve of a gentleman like Kirby.

And she says, ‘Don’t worry baby, everything will be alright.’

At the cemetery, once the casket is lowered into the grave between grandpa and my folks, Aunt Sandy invites everyone back to her house for a drink to Gram-Grams memory. I stand between Ed and Carys on the grass, peering down into the hole which, in the next couple of days will be covered with a granite tombstone.

Kirby approaches us cautiously and shakes hands with us all.

“Eddie, lets go bring the car to the gate for Rhys, it’ll take forever to get out of the car-park.” Carys contributes slyly.

“Go, Greased Lightning,” Ed deadpans.

I close my eyes.

“Not even funny, man.”

He shrugs. “Meh, there are worse things I could do.”

“I’ll see you in your dreams tonight, Ed.”

“Ooh, tell me more, tell me more.”

Carys drags her boyfriend away.

-----*----*-----

“You knew about this.” I eventually say to Kirby as we wander amongst rows of graves and flowers. Grandparents, brothers, sisters, wives, children, husbands, aunts, uncles, mothers, fathers. Peoples family.

“It’s bizarre how I only knew her on a screen, but she seemed like a…peculiar woman. Amazing, really.”

“Yeah, she’s awesome.” I say, finally choking up. Now? Really?

“Hey, hey, hey.” He soothes when he spots me swiping at my eyes and puts his arm around me. While still strolling at the pace of a snail in a walking frame, he presses a kiss into my hair. I pause. I’m bad at this type of situation.

“Look, Kirby, did you, um, I mean…” Today would be nice, Rhys. “…Aunt Sandy is having this thing, don’t feel like you have to or anything but because you’re a…friend... I think, but you’re welcome t…shit, I’m appalling at this…ok. Aunt Sandy’s, yes? Or y…”

He reaches over and wipes a smothered tear away from under my eye with his thumb. I freeze-up at his affectionate gesture, not really knowing what to do.

“Of course I’m coming, Cam.”

He almost doubles over when I get him in the stomach with my elbow.

A bit mushy, perhaps? Sigh. I kind of like these characters and am considering some more one-shotedness using them.

Thanks for reading you beautiful people.

Xx