The Bicycle Helmet

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Bubbles was 19 years old and she was in love with a bicycle helmet.
It started when she fell off her bike in the fifth grade. She’d needed seven skull staples and the doctor said she should have been wearing a helmet. So, Bubbles’ mum took her shopping at the bicycle helmet shop and there it was- pink, gleaming, beautiful.
As soon as she laid eyes on him she knew it was the end for her and the blanket.
This… This was forever. Love, at first sight.
Breaking up with Billy Blanket was hard. With his soft, fake cashmere-style warmth and his gentle frills she knew he would always hold a special place in her heart, but she couldn’t live a lie and she had to tell him… There was no easy way to do it.
Bubbles had been in love with three different objects since she was eight. It was difficult because not many people really understood it. But it was love, real love.
Bubbles and Benny, the bicycle helmet, could talk for hours, without saying a word. Benny was a great listener, a kind, and compassionate protector. Bubbles and her bicycle helmet were very happy and completely in love.
The others called her an objectum sexual, which she didn’t really mind. But it was difficult when she answered online quizzes or filled out doctor’s forms in waiting rooms because there was never a box to tick for objectum sexuals or for “things” as a sexual preference.
Bubbles didn’t really have too many friends because she was quite shy and she had known troubled times which taught her to be wary of people. But there was one girl, a girl on the bus who Bubbles liked because she smelled like freshly mowed lawns. The girl was very friendly and she didn’t think it odd when Bubbles boarded with her bicycle helmet. She even stood up for Bubbles when Bubbles and Benny couldn’t find a seat, not literally, she didn’t literally stand up for them (you only stand up for old people on the bus,) just verbally- 'cause the other kids teased the couple as they wobbled around the moving vehicle.
The nice girl said “Oi! Lay off! You lot quieten down before I force my fist down your froat and make you quieten down!”
Bubbles felt pretty good when she was around. But not as good as she felt when Benny the bicycle helmet was close by. Bubbles really enjoyed the way Benny made her feel so safe, just by being there. It wasn’t something that could be described too easily. Love is just one of those unquantifiable things.
Lately, Benny and Bubbles had been considering moving into their own place together- even though they only had the income of Bubbles’ full time job at Macca’s. It was time. They needed their space and their freedom to live as an adult couple.
Fortunately, and quite by chance, the pair were able to find, not too far away, a fine home to rent for a very fair price. You see, the home was half of another objectum sexual partnership and nobody else wanted to live inside. Other house hunters remarked that they were uncomfortable with its girlfriend spending so much time at the front gate. Bubbles and Benny were entirely unfazed.
Life was good for the lovestruck pair, they lived simply but comfortably.

Given that she was now catching the bus an extra five stops to her new home every afternoon, Bubbles became quite good friends with the aggressive friendly girl from the bus and she was happy to have a companion. She invited the bus girl over to her house to hang out and at times it was quite awkward because neither knew the other’s name and the moment to ask had most certainly passed. But, they enjoyed themselves and each silently gave thanks to God for inventing the word, “Mate.” One balmy day, the girl from the bus came over for a barbie and, through the course of the evening she, Bubbles and Benny got to talking about marijuana. The legalisation of it and such. Bubbles didn’t really mind about marijuana policy either way but Benny and the girl from the bus were adamant that its legalisation would be a positive thing in diminishing the recreational use of the drug. “Take something away from the people and they want it with all their strengf.” The girl from the bus said. “Make it okay and nobody wants nufink to do with it. Ruddy need tah make broccoli illegal, ay!” She laughed. And then she politely moved to the other side of the room and began to roll paper filled with medical marijuana which she needed to lessen the pain of her chronic back injury.
Later in the night, after the bus girl had left, Bubbles emptied the bus girls ash tray into the bin, stacked their dirty plates in the dishwasher and retired to bed with Benny. Unfortunately, one of the paper butts from bus girls doobie was not entirely burned out and, in the bin, it began a fire. The fire spread through the house and as siren sounds grew close and the entire house became engulfed in flame, Bubbles and Benny emerged, as if in a dramatic movie, with Benny wrapped protectively around Bubbles’ head, keeping her safe. The pair suffered minor external injuries and mild symptoms of smoke inhallation but their pain was nothing compared to that of the house’s romantic partner.
She was absolutely gutted.
As was the house, a few days later.

Debby the Drunkard

Debby was drunk every weekend.
With her, it was all or nothing, all the time. When she exercised, which was infrequently, she ran for hours at a time. When she worked, which was as little as possible, she worked with the effort of two employees. And when Debby partied, it was purposeful. Debby enjoyed her beer and she enjoyed her Bundy- her friends said she was a good time.
Every Friday night Debby experienced “time travel.” Time travel happened deep inside a drunken stupor where even her memory deserted her. Sometimes Debby considered that her memory was being kind, selectively skipping out when things occurred that she may not wish to remember. Sometimes, on Saturday mornings, Debby woke up with stamps on her wrist that she didn’t remember being stamped with and Debby said “Thank you, memory, for allowing me to forget.” And then she would call her friends and say, “Sooo… what happened last night? I time travelled.” And they would tell her the main facts about the good times that she forgot. If there was something Debby didn’t enjoy the sounds of, she would simply shrug, sigh and read her tattoo. It was on the inside of her left wrist, and it read, in beautiful Comic Sans script: “If I don’t remember, it didn’t happen.”

On one particular Friday night something went awry in an unusual way. Debby went out a little bit later than expected because she had to wait for a Triple Berry Cheesecake to cool on her Café World Facebook application. Debby finally met up with her girlfriends at Buckeye, a honkytonk karaoke bar where they all knew the bartender. The bartender was a little old and not very attractive but he was incredibly good at mixing Bundy with Coke and his ladies-only happy hour lasted all night long. Tonight, because she was playing catch-ups, Debby ordered her favourite green beverage, the Mind Eraser.

When she “woke up” from her alcohol-induced blackout, or, arrived at the time travel destination as it were, Debby found herself standing, dressed in bra and trackpants, in the toilet inside of her apartment.
Now, Debby’s toilet was in a room connected to her bathroom. On the toilet door all week there had been stuck a hot pink sticky note which read “DO NOT CLOSE!” Because the door was broken.
It seemed that now the door was closed and Debby was on the inside of it. “Hmm.” She thought, trying the handle which turned… and turned and turned, not appearing to affect the doors function in the slightest.
“No matter,” Debby said to herself, still quite drunk and cheery. “I’ll just knock for Sally to come and save me.” Sally was Debby’s housemate and her bedroom was directly beside the bathroom.
“Tap tap tap.” Went Debby’s finger tips on the hollow wooden door. “Tap tap” again. No answer. Not a peep. So, “bang bang bang!” went her fist on the door. “Bang bang” again. No answer. Not a peep.
Becoming just a little frustrated now and searching inside for her inner-Macguyver, Debby looked to the window which was covered in flyscreen and which opened no wider than a ruler length. Well, feeling her inner Macguyver shy away just a little bit, Debby opened the window and peered down in the darkness to the rose bushes which grew from the ground two storeys below. She closed the window with a shudder.
“Well, I wonder what to do now…” Debby pottered around in the 45cm by 45cm space between wall, door, toilet, and toilet cupboard wondering, quite actively, what to do. During her wondering, and her wandering, Debby’s elbow hit the door handle of the cupboard. Curious, she turned that handle and found the hot water cylinder behind the cupboard door. “Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle,” She mused, good naturedly. “That’s why the hot water runs out so quickly- that little guy is teeny tiny!” And just above the small water cylinder, on a cheap wooden shelf, Debby found a spare shower curtain. “Perfect.” She decided. “That should do nicely.” And she wrapped it around herself and settled in to sleep on the toilet floor until she could be found. As she nodded off, Debby continued banging on the toilet door steadily, loudly: “Bang, bang bang!” But she did not cry out lest she wake everybody up. She found this logic to be questionable later.
Who knows how long later Debby woke to the sounds of the morning birds singing and the first hint of light in the sky. “That does it.” She huffed. “That. Does it. I am not going to be locked in the toilet while the sun comes up.” And she slid open that tiny little toilet window and she punched through the fly screen. She climbed on top of the porcelain throne and flung one leg out into the cool, morning air. Debby stood precariously on top of the air conditioning unit outside, trying not to look down. She noticed that her left foot was perched directly on top of a “no standing” sign on the air conditioning unit. She guessed that was not too good so she really dug her fingernails into the red brick wall and looked around for a good next place to step.
She couldn’t climb down, it was too far and she’d only find herself locked out of a greater area. Then she saw it, just an extended stride away was the windowsill of the bathroom. So she strode. And when she got there, clinging to the red brick and willing away any violent gusts of wind that might push her off, she found she could slide the window open… ten centimeters- There was a security stick wedged inside the window and she couldn’t possibly dislodge it. “God damn security!” She cursed. And so she straddled the partially-opened window, pushing one leg through until she was sitting uncomfortably between inside and outside, and she carefully, painfully, oozed herself the rest of the way in.
Panting, Debby tumbled over the sink and inside her bathroom. She smiled to herself and adjusted her bra strap, proud of her almost gymnast-like prowess.
And then the door next to the bathroom opened and Sally walked out of her bedroom, rubbing her eyes. “Hey, Deb,” She yawned. “What are you doing up?”
Debby groaned and stumbled into her bedroom, every limb craving her very comfortable and cozy doona.
But before she could dive beneath its warmth Debby looked down and saw what must have driven her to the bathroom in the first place.
Debby’s bed was covered in yellow throw-up and speckled with orange and green bits.
Debby the Drunkard was not a happy traveller.

Debby the Drunkard

1STCAR

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"Oi, oi, check out the personalised plates I got 'er."
And they all looked- '1STCAR'
"One shit car?" They said.
"Nah, mate. First car, it's her first car, oright? Cheezus. You blokes... Shit, you think she'll think it means one shit- Ah, you blokes. Shut your holes 'fore I rip you a fresh one."
And Dog probably could. He was a pretty big unit on account of the hours per week he'd spent tending to his physique for the past few years. Luckily, for his mates, Dog wasn't feeling too violent today- he was just excited. Really, really excited.

Last week was Solid Item Disposal day in the small municipality of RooChat and Dog had gone rummaging for second hand used goods. This was the one week of the year that the people of the neighbourhood were allowed to leave anything- no matter how big, old, dirty, and bulky- out for garbage collection and disposal. Which meant it was the one week of the year when it was worth raiding wheely bins and driving around in the chilly air in the back of a trailor. You never knew what people could be discarding.
This year on Solid Item Disposal day, Dog had gathered a fine collection of goods. He'd nabbed a large, rolled up piece of carpeting for his carport, some new old Nike Pumps (which definitely had at least 6 months more wear in the sole,) and a new king-sized bed head and base (his mattress was a queen but he had figured this ambitious frame left room for a future upgrade.)
Well, the future didn't have to wait long. Today, after he presented Shirley with her first car, Dog was going to pick up his new Sleep Number king sized mattress.

"Choice!" He had exclaimed when he saw the rolled up carpeting. "That's what I need for my carport- bit of cushion for my V8 and a bit of in-shur-la-tion for me when I'm working in my workshop. Yeah... Choice." And he rapped two times on the back of the slowly rolling ute which told Ham there was something worth stopping for here. Together, Ham and Dog had loaded the heavy roll of navy blue shagpile into the trailor and set off on their merry way.
Later, when Dog unrolled the thick blue stuff in his carport he was spitting chips.
"I'm spittin' chips!" He said on the phone to Ham. "Them bloody, cheating pricks! Leavin' out sumfink so feral! I oughta go kick their door in and give them a piece of my mind I oughta!" And Dog was so angry, so very angry that he threw down his phone and started swinging his huge fists into the grey cinder block walls of his carport. He threw tools around his workshop area and even kicked at his timber plank stocks. Luckily, Dog lived in a neighbourhood with a very conscientious Neighbourhood Watch scheme and so it wasn't long before someone called in a report of a domestic disturbance and it wasn't much longer than that before the coppers arrived.
"Hey, mate," A tall policeman said, climbing off his bicycle. "What seems to be the problem?"
"You tell me, mate!" Dog, blood bulging through the huge vein that pumped in his shiny forehead pointed, furiously, at his new carpeting. "You tell me what seems to be the effing problem here!"
And the copper whistled as he surveyed the shagpile. For it was a sight to whistle at.
The holey, mouldy, mushroom infested, stinking square of navy blue looked like a petri dish experiment of deliberately created filth. It was, quite actively, disgusting.
Then the copper's partner walked in. A girl. A youngish girl with brown, curly hair pulled back into her copper cap. "Jesus, Stew'" She breathed in wonderment. "Does this guy know what he's got here? Jesus..." And she looked up at Dog where he stood rubbing his raw knuckles angrily. "You're a lucky bloke, you are," She breathed.
"You being funny are ya?"
"No!" She wrinkled her nose up at him. "This," She pointed reverently at the carpeting. "This is an infestation of rare black truffles! Don't you know? I thought they needed a tree... They're worth- phwoar, they're worth, like $6000 a kilo! Saw 'em on Master Chef last week. Jesus mate, you've got yourself some sort of fungi mine right here. Looks like they're lovin' that shagpile, hey? That's a lot of kilo's I'd say..."

Later, when the copper's had officially issued their warning and left, Dog made some calls. In the morning the master chef's entourage flew in. Three of them, from the swankiest restaurants in Australia, armed with little red and blue eski's, on a mission for their master's. One came from Perth, one from Melbourne and one from Sydney harbour. They left Dog with wads of cash and just enough bacteria for a fresh batch of fungi in one years time, if he was very lucky.

Ham was waiting outside with Shirley when Dog pulled up in the new second hand VW mini featuring personalised plates. He tooted the horn gently to announce his arrival then hopped out and grabbed his god daughter from his best mate's arms. "See that Shirl?" He pointed so her little baby eyes might see. "That right there's gonna be your first car! I'll teach you to drive it when you're all growed up."