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Billy Undergoes Some Changes

By Daniel Euphrat

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Later that afternoon, Billy noticed something unusual.

He called his doctor.

“Did you eat anything funny?” said the doctor.

“What could I possibly have eaten,” said Billy, “that would make a nose grow out of my forehead?”

“Beats the hell out of me,” said the doctor.

“Hmm,” said Billy. “Well, thanks for the advice.”

“No problem.”

“The hell there isn’t a problem!” said Billy, but at that point the doctor had already hung up the phone.

 He poked the nose.

 It twitched.

 “Come on now, that’s just unnatural,” said Billy.

***

He decided to go to the hardware store to buy himself a saw.

“Sweet Jesus!” said the girl at the counter. “There’s a nose on your forehead.”

“Hence,” said Billy, “the saw.”

“Well, that’s no solution,” said the girl, eyeing the brutal-looking handsaw with a slight grimace.

“Really? What solution is there to having a nose on one’s forehead that doesn’t involve a saw?”

“Look: if you saw off the nose, you’ll just have a bloody hole in your forehead instead. Is that any better?”

Billy shrugged.

“There must be a better way to handle this,” said the girl.

 Billy sighed. “Just ring up the saw already,” he said.

 “I won’t,” said the girl.

 “What?”

 “I won’t let you mutilate yourself like this. I refuse to sell you this saw.”

 “God damn it….  Look, whatever happened to ‘the customer is always right?’”

“Yeah, well, guess what? ‘We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone.’ Just like the sign says. So I won’t sell you this saw. Got it?”

Billy attempted to rub his forehead in agitation, but brushed against the nose in the process and recoiled in disgust. “Please?” he said.

“No.”

 “Well, what’d you suggest I do?” said Billy, near tears.

 “Well, I wouldn’t recommend crying,” said the girl, “because snot will probably pour down your forehead. And that would be disgusting.”

“Thanks for the tip,” said Billy.

 “No problem.”

“The hell there isn’t!” snapped Billy. “Now look. I am getting rid of this nose one way or another. Now, are you going to help me or not?”

“I won’t ‘help’ you by selling you this ugly thing,” she said, gesturing to the saw.

“Well, will you help me through some other means?”

 The checkout girl raised an eyebrow. “I’m not entirely sure why I should.”

“Because,” Billy glared at her, “I already came up with one solution.”

“One that involves taking a saw to your own face.”

“And I haven’t heard you suggest a better one.”

“Maybe an extra nose on your forehead isn’t a bad thing…”

Billy snorted. “Easy for you to say.”

“Well, how do things smell?”

Billy closed his mouth and inhaled deeply. “Hmm…” he said. “I don’t think I can breathe through it. Hell, it isn’t even my nose! And it’s on my forehead! Goddamn it, give me the saw!”

“No!” the check-out girl yanked the saw away from him and held it behind her back. “If it isn’t your nose, than whose nose is it?”

“Beats the hell out of me,” said Billy. “I just want to be rid of it.”

“I still don’t see why it’s such a problem,” said the check-out girl.

“Oh really? Would you sleep with a man with a nose on his forehead?”

The girl raised her other eyebrow. “Who says I would sleep with you under any circumstance?”

Billy looked hurt. “Hasn’t this day been bad enough for me already? Do you really need to start throwing the insults around?”

“Okay, I’m sorry… I think… Look, I’m sure some girl out there would find you attractive with two noses.”

“Oh right, because there are, after all, so many girls out there with nose fetishes.”

“There must be some. How did we start talking about this anyway? Is that seriously the most important thing to you right now? How you’ll attract women with a nose growing out of your forehead?”

“No. Most important is how I won’t.”

“Great.”

“Look, this shouldn’t be a discussion anyway. This should be a ‘me giving you money and you giving me a saw’… thing.”

“Wait… did this nose just appear suddenly?”

 “Yeah, earlier this afternoon.”

 “Well, hey, maybe it’ll just go away again.”

 “Why would that happen?”

 “Why would it just appear in the first place? Why not? There’s a chance, at least,” the girl smiled at him reassuringly.

“Hmm,” said Billy.

“Look,” said the girl, “why don’t you go home and sleep on it. Tomorrow, if it’s still there, give me a call and we’ll try to come up with something else.”

“I think,” said Billy, “if it’s still there tomorrow, I’m going to buy a fucking saw.”

“Okay, okay. But look, I’ll give you my number anyway. And you have to call me to let me know how it turns out. Okay?”

“Okay,” said Billy.

***

Later that evening, he looked in the mirror one last time before going to bed.

“God damn you, nose,” he said, speaking directly to the protrusion from his forehead. “God damn you to hell!”

The nose did not appear fazed.

Billy sighed and unzipped his fly for his before-bed piss.

And that was when he noticed something else unusual.

“I’m pretty sure,” he said, “I used to only have one of those.”

He called up the check-out girl.

“Hello?” she said.

“Hey. It’s Billy.”

“Billy?”

“The guy from the store?”

 Silence.

“With the extra nose?” said Billy.

“Oh, that Billy. What’re you doing? I thought you were going to wait until morning. Or is the nose already gone?”

“No, it’s not gone,” said Billy, “just… remember the whole ‘you not sleeping with me’ thing?”

“…yeah?”

“Well, there’s been a new development…”

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