An explosion of lights, colour and upbeat music.

A giant poster of ARTY looking fat and pathetic.

A thin ARTY rips through the poster to reveal his new slim physique.

Screaming rapturous applause.

Sound bites of ‘Oh, my God!’, ‘Can you believe it?’ ‘I can’t believe it!’, ‘He looks amazing!’, etc.

ARTY nervously assumes body-building poses, and waves to the crowd.

He talks to the camera.

ARTY: Feel fantastic, yeah. I mean, I’m a new person, aren’t I?

Ecstatic applause.

I mean it hurt. A lot.

PRODUCER: Cut to

Montage of Arty’s hospital images

Arty smiling weakly on the Big Boy hospital gurney three days after the gastric bypass

Arty unconscious as two attendants hold the five feet of skin they’ve just cut from his middle like a fisherman does a bull shark by the tail

They wear plastic masks but you can see the smile in their crow’s feet as they hitch the skin from his legs like a loose pair of tights and sew it to his chest

Arty 400 stitches later when the morphine doesn’t do shit

ARTY: But it’s been worth it, definitely. I’m happy. I’m really happy. Got a job now. Haven’t collected disability in… almost two years now, yeah.

Beat.

Administrative Assistant. At the council office. Yeah, yeah, it is good. Got, um, my mates there. Rajesh. Real character.

PRODUCER: Cut to

Rajesh drawing a penis on the side of Arty’s embarrassed face

ARTY: We go out on a Friday night sometimes but I’ve gotta be careful, ’cause I can’t drink too much with the bypass, you get smashed after one beer so… yeah.

PRODUCER: Cut to

Arty sitting in the corner of a heaving pub, nursing a soda water with lime while Rajesh pinches the norgs of an intoxicated blonde

ARTY: Yeah, still living with Mum. Typical boy, not leaving home. Rental prices, a national problem I tell her.

PRODUCER: Cut to

JOJO: Moon love, I taped Jessica. She’s in New Mexico with the Indians. You should see this new hat she’s got.

PRODUCER: Cut to

Arty secretly sucking up a liquidised McHappy meal with a straw

ARTY: I tried to see Louise. Wanted her to see how I was… all different, now I was finished. How I was something she could be proud of, y’know, respectable in trousers. ’Cause it was all her, wasn’t it? Me, the new man. But she… Maybe I changed too much and she couldn’t change enough, y’know?

Beat.

The future? Whatever happens, I’m a success. I don’t need any more dreams ’cause I’ve made it, haven’t I? And that’s gotta be enough for one lifetime. I guess that’s enough.

He stares out into space.

In the life Arty’s living in his head

He’s just been shot in the guts by that security guard they thought was dead