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resistance ; Kelli’s jelly belly. Yep, despite my impressive visualisation, I’m still fifty!
    Damn. Bugger. Crap. Multiplied by ten.
    Desperate to dry off and cover my hideous body, I automatically reached for a non-existent towel. Having run out of expletives, I simply said, “Brilliant. Just brilliant.”
    Standing with my hands on my hips, I examined the giant hand-dryer thingamajig and tilted my head to the side, furrowing my already furrowed brows. It must be used in place of towels, there’s no other possible explanation. I prodded and poked the machine tentatively but nothing happened, so I inched myself between the two parts of the machine, hoping it wasn’t some kind of vice that would squish my body into oblivion. Although, on second thoughts …
    “How do I turn it on?” I asked myself out aloud and at that moment, jets of warm air pushed against my front and back. Reflexively I shut my eyes and mouth. After a few seconds it stopped, my body completely dry. Maybe this bathroom wasn’t so bad after all.
    Anxious to finally get some clothes on, I opened the door a fraction, checking to see if the coast was clear. I tip-toed into the unfamiliar bedroom and pulled back a sliding door. The good news was an array of clothing hung from a rack, so I’d be able to put a long overdue end to my nakedness. The bad news was I wouldn’t be caught dead in most of the outfits. Who would wear such things? Well, me obviously. But surely my fifty-year-old taste couldn’t be that bad? I was a fashion model for Christ’s sake! I knew what’s hot and what’s not, and this stuff wasn’t even lukewarm.
    So I had three choices:
    1. Remain naked.
    2. Put my nightgown back on.
    3. Suck it up and wear one of the outfits.
    As my stomach grumbled for food and my nose detected a faint smell of something good cooking, I stepped into a coral-coloured starched skirt in which the hem ended halfway down my calves before turning upwards into a revolting curved abomination and looking like a baby catch-all bib. The matching top was just as bad, its hem curving upwards too, but if the need arose at least I’d have a place to store snacks. Or Valium.
    Now desperately hungry and looking like a middle-aged Oompa-Loompa, I followed the smell out of the bedroom, down a hallway and into a kitchen, where William sat at the bench sipping from a mug. If he was there, then who was cooking?
    I looked towards the source of the delicious aroma and nearly threw up into my curved hems. A young man stood there in a pink apron. He was tall, with various pieces of metal jewellery adorning his pierced skin and his hair was jet black despite one hot pink streak falling loose from his mullet/Mohawk/ponytail thingy.
    “Happy birthday, Mum!” he said and for the second time that day I wilted to the floor.

Chapter 2
Breakfast at McSnelly’s
    “Inside every older person is a younger person wondering what happened.”
    – Jennifer Yane
    “Mum! Are you alright?”
    Warm hands patted my cheeks as I opened my eyes to the concerned faces of two men hovering above me, one apparently my husband, the other apparently my …
    No way! I had a son?
    “No, I’m not alright! Yesterday I was young, unmarried and … firm, and now I’m old, married and … saggy,” I said with a quivering lip, as the men each hooked an arm under my armpits and lifted me up, leading me towards a chair at the dining table.
    “Your mother’s just having a few issues around turning fifty, Ryan,” William said to his son in hushed tones, before looking at me with a hopeful smile. “But you’ll be right, won’t you, honey? Once you’ve had breakfast you’ll feel better and then you can get started on the birthday of your dreams!”
    Birthday of my dreams? Not in this body.
    My stomach grumbled as I buried my face in my hands and the young man, Ryan—my son—placed a plate of food next to me on the table. A warm, buttery aroma wafted into my nostrils and I lifted my head from my