Beached by Melissa Bubnic

Author:Melissa Bubnic
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Currency Press
Published: 2013-08-12T00:00:00+00:00

102 DAYS

ARTY: The new Arty?

PRODUCER: What’s his deal? Motivational spokesman, musician—ooh! TV chef. You could sell that. Former fat man gives you the Skinny on Diets that work—you know, you with a chef’s hat counselling fatties, looking through their fridge, them crying, you understanding—you see it?

ARTY: All I want is to be normal.

PRODUCER: Bullshit! All anyone wants is to be extraordinary.

ARTY: Better than normal?

PRODUCER: Now we’re cooking with gas! So paint us the future, a scenario, you know, you abseiling down Kilimanjaro or you with a gorgeous bird, tits the size of watermelons on a beach in Hawaii—something with… favour.

ARTY: I s’pose I got a couple ideas what the future may be like, maybe…

PRODUCER: You dirty dog! Gimme some sugar!

ARTY: In the life Arty’s living in his head

He owns a briefcase, old and cracked, which his wife thinks isn’t good enough for him

And it’s one of those arguments that they have

When he comes home from a hard day’s work and hangs his Fedora on the hook in the hall

She takes one look at that briefcase and says

Arthur, I am buying you a new briefcase.

And he says

No need, Lulu pet. It’s vintage. Just like me.

And she shakes her head and rolls her eyes and he smiles and she pretends to be cross but she’s smiling too

Because he loves her

And she loves him

And that’s how he knows he’s exactly where he’s s’posed to be

Arthur Arthur is home.

Beat.

PRODUCER: That it?

ARTY shrugs helplessly.

This is television. You got dogs that play the spoons on ‘Australia’s Got Talent’ and you think people are missing that to hear you talk about a fucking briefcase?

ARTY: Not enough favour?

PRODUCER: Arty mate, you and I aren’t so very different.

ARTY: We’re not?

PRODUCER: I was the fat kid once.

ARTY: Really?

PRODUCER: I could’ve been. Whether I was fat or not isn’t the issue, the fact is I know you. Do you know how I know you? Because we’re all the same. Every single one of us is driven by the same thing and do you know what that thing is?

ARTY thinks about it.

ARTY: A complex system of life-sustaining organs?

PRODUCER: Dreams. We all have a dream.

ARTY: Oh, I don’t—

PRODUCER: Of course you’ve got dreams! You’ve been imprisoned in your body your whole life. You’re busting out, you can do anything, be anything and you got 18 years of wanting, of dreams and hopes and wishes to make up for! Swim with sharks, wrestle alligators, get maggoted in Amsterdam. Follow your dreams.

ARTY: My dreams?

PRODUCER: Anyone who’s ever been great started out just like you. A fat nothing. But do you think that stopped Richard Branson?

ARTY shakes his head.

The cunt believed in himself and now he’s a billionaire bonking supermodels coked out of his brain.

ARTY: Really?

PRODUCER: Probably. The point is, Arty, you’ve got to believe the dream to live the dream. I had a dream to work in television and look at me now.

ARTY: You’re doing very well.

PRODUCER: I could be doing better. And you, Arty, can help me.

ARTY: I’d like to help you if I can.

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