It’s getting dark, and I call Bear.

Bear answers and says, ‘Sup bish!’

Maybe thirty minutes ago, Bear sent me this YouTube clip over Facebook.

It was a song that said the word ‘bish’ a lot.

We keep calling each other ‘bishes’ and laughing.

I say, ‘Hey, sorry I missed your call before. I was working. What’s up?’

Bear is making loud chewing noises on the other end of the line and laughing.

Bear says, ‘Sorry, just eating some bacon. She’s crispy. Super crispy.’

I say, ‘You nippin’ some bacon in the bud?’

And Bear says, ‘What!’

I say, ‘You nippin’ it?’

And he laughs even louder.

In the background, someone, maybe his housemate, says, ‘What’s so funny?’

Bear says, ‘My brother’s nippin’ buds.’

Bear’s housemate says, ‘Aww, sick-os.’

I tell Bear to tell his housemate that I’m just lying on the couch nipping buds.

Bear tells his housemate, and his housemate says, ‘Farking sick, aye. Farking love just lyon on the couch-os and pullin’ cones-os.’

Everyone laughs.

I say, ‘You know, if this KeepCup career doesn’t work out, we should go into comedy.’

Bear says, ‘YouTube comedy is where it’s at.’

I say, ‘Remember when I used to steal your towel?’

And Bear says, ‘Yeah.’

I say, ‘That was funny.’

And Bear says, ‘No. It wasn’t.’

I think: but it was.

Oh, man.

I got so good at stealing Bear’s towels.

We used to share a room when we lived in Brisbane.

His towels were always clean and mine were usually dirty.

When the towel-stealing game started — like, the first time — I said, ‘Bear, what time you getting up?’

And he said, ‘Around 7.15.’

And I said, ‘Yeah, cool.’

I set my alarm for 7.05.

I un-pegged Bear’s towel from his Port-A-Robe and got into the shower.

Because of water restrictions, we had this timer, one of those hourglass things with the sand in it, and it timed our showers to two minutes.

And I got in and turned the hourglass over so the sand started falling.

Then got out when it stopped.

Got out smiling and feeling fresh because of the open window with the breeze coming through and the clean towel on my face and the knowledge that I’d used my allocated share of water and that it was 7.08, which meant I still had seven minutes to completely dry my body and hair and re-peg Bear’s towel and get back into bed to wait for his alarm to go bing! bing! bing!

Attention to detail.

When he got up, he felt his towel and said, ‘Did you use my towel?’

And I said, ‘No.’

He said, ‘You used my fucking towel!’

And I put two fingers in my ears and yelled, ‘LALALALALA! LALALALALALALA!’

Now, Bear says, ‘Did you hear what I said?’

And I say, ‘What?’

Bear says, ‘It’s my first day off work in forever. I’m going skateboarding.’

And I say, ‘Sick!’

Bear says, ‘Yeah.’

‘Gonna go backside nectar?’

‘Backside nectar, baby.’

‘Hell yeah.’

We pause.

I say, ‘Harry.’

‘Yeah?’

‘You should come down and visit sometime. Like, when you have days off. I’d love to have you come down.’

And Bear tells me he’d like that a lot.

We say goodbye and hang up.

And, staring at myself in the bedroom mirror, I imagine our faces morphing into one, staying there for a while before separating, and I look at Bear’s face, expecting to see the same kid who used to follow me around the football field, who would play handball with me after school in Brisbane at Milton train station while we waited for Mum to pick us up, but instead I see a young man standing by himself, standing on the top branches of the twenty-metre tree overlooking Gardener Falls in Maleny, smiling at the air in front of him and then jumping — just falling through the air and hitting the water, resurfacing and wiping his face, and yelling, ‘Hehehehehehahahahhahahahahhahahahahahha!!!!!!!!!’