84.11 Hearsay

HEARSAY

uofa student magazine

- issue 84.11

On Dit is a publication of the Adelaide University Union.

We recognise that the Kaurna people are the landowners and custodians of the Adelaide Plains.

Ngaldu tampinthi Kaurna miyurna yarta mathanya Wama Tarntanyaku.

Editors: Lur Alghurabi, Natalie Carfora, and Celia Clennett Sub-Editors: Karolinka Dawidziak-Pacek, Grace Denney, Brydie Kosmina, and Seamus Mullins Designers: Chelsea Allen, Anna Bailes, Daniel Bonato, and Georgia Diment Social Media: Nicole Wedding

Got a bee in your bonnet? Email us at ondit@adelaide.edu.au Front Cover: Ashlee Smallwood-Simpson

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FOREWORD

Hello there!

We are happy/proud/emotional to welcome you to Hearsay, our annual creative writing special! Happy because over the past month, we have been reading more good stories than we could have ever asked for. Proud because of the level of talent in our student community. Emotional because Hearsay was one of the first places we got published, and it’s been our favourite edition of On Dit since we joined uni.

Having studied Creative Writing ourselves, we know how much talent is sitting right here in our classrooms. Your writing has made us laugh out loud, cry a little bit and sometimes confuse the hell out of us (in a good way). We think it deserves all the exposure it can get, and we hope Hearsay opens the door for you to step foot into the big international publishing world. We want your work to be read by everyone ever, and we’re stoked that you started with us.

We received over 70 submissions for Hearsay. We shortlisted the top 20 to be published in this anthology, which was an incredibly difficult thing to do. Entries this year were quite varied across both fiction and poetry. We’re glad to be publishing works of students with unique voices, experimental styles and well-crafted skills.

A final thank you to our judges and our sponsors; without you, Hearsay wouldn’t be nearly as awesome as it is.

–Lur, Natalie and Celia

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ABOUT THE JUDGES

LIZ ALLAN Liz Allan is a Creative Writing PhD candidate at The University of Adelaide, investigating the themes of violence and haunting in Australian road stories. Her research explores myths of homeland and expulsion in road writing, in relation to Australian frontier mythology. Liz teaches in Creative Writing: The Essentials at The University of Adelaide and runs The Adelaide Writers’ Group through the SA Writers Centre. She was awarded the J.M. Coetzee English and Creative Writing Prize in 2014.

SARAH GATES Sarah Gates is a romance writer based in Adelaide. Her first novel, Love Elimination, was published by Harlequin Mira in July 2016. She was the 2015 winner of the $12,500 Colin Thiele Scholarship for Creative Writing. Sarah teaches workshops on writing and publishing and has written and edited for a number of publications including Voiceworks, InDaily, Dubnium and Empire Times. She is a student of Law/Arts and works in marketing at SA Writers Centre.

DANIEL WATSON Daniel Watson has run small publisher Paroxysm Press since 1998. He is now also one of the co-operators of Spoken Word SA; having MCd the SA leg of the Australian Poetry Slam since it began. Publication credits include poetry, short stories, ‘flash fiction’ and comic book scripts.

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JUDGES’ COMMENTS FIRST PRIZE (FICTION) Escape Mechanisms: A Manifesto by Deanna Varkanis Escape Mechanisms: A Manifesto is a lyrical meditation on the pleasures of travel. The story moves between Paris, New York, London, Rome and Barcelona, creating portraits of place with vivid imagery and sensory detail. The second person narrative voice and playful language create a sense of intimacy and confession. The writer doesn’t shy away from the romantic, creating a sense of locale which is both strange and familiar. There is a sense in the pauses between each impression that the writer is travelling great distances, collecting observations to share with the reader. In the words of the author: ‘Gotta go Ma, the world is calling.’

FIRST PRIZE (POETRY) Black Holes by Rebeca Schneider Black Holes is a mix of long, meandering passages and tight, succinct, statements. The enormous ‘external’ of space/black hole brought quickly down to the personal and immediate. Then growing that personal back out in to its own lovingly described ‘enormity to be found in the minute’. It is a beautiful, passionate piece that hides behind it a ‘ just hanging on by my fingernails’ feel. Desperation, appreciation and hope.

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SECOND PRIZE (FICTION) Bojana’s Choice by Mara Blazic Bojana’s Choice is an account of the true event of John Nash, an amateur clairvoyant who predicted an earthquake and tidal wave would obliterate Adelaide on January 19, 1976. The media publicity caused widespread panic, particularly among some non-English speaking migrant communities. Written from the perspective of seven-year-old Bojana, the child of Serbian parents, Bojana’s Choice is a beautifully written portrayal of the strange combination of innocence and shrewd observation which characterises the child’s perspective. The wry humour of the writer and the symbolism of the Barbie dolls work particularly well in portraying the dangerous potential the media has to spread misinformation in the community.

SECOND PRIZE (POETRY) Distillation by Casey Michell-Tonkin Distillation is initially surprising with it’s ‘ jarring’ use of unexpected line breaks. The use of a word from a line often being dropped down to the one below unsettles and makes it difficult to relax into the poem. But soon this own ‘anti-form’ is a rhythm in itself and one which, as it progresses, turns out to suit the content of the poem.

And as the imagery and descriptions darken to their topic; from lines like “empty used condom” to the use of horror culture references we end up with a powerful, compact work.

FIRST PRIZE - FICTION

ESCAPE MECHANISMS:

A MANIFESTO DEANNA VARK ANIS

You are the maker, dreamer, and weaver of your own patch-worked world of wonderment. You, who mourns cities of faraway ages, stifling Marrakech market stalls, and the scent of the Black Sea; so lick your lips and leave. Carve your own world out of megalithic stone, study your maps, and melt into moments of the unknown. And when you get tired, or find you’ve rediscovered an unbearable complacency for Paris, or London, or Rome, pick yourself up with your itchy-feet (from tangled sheets) and leave. Relish in the freedom of travel, your wanton need for adventure, and the changing of the seasons. Buy a suitcase, borrow a pseudonym; trip carelessly down cobbled stones and surrender yourself wholeheartedly to the pursuit of your dreams…

So what more is left to say? Hop on that plane, and run away.

PARIS i. Run away to Paris; trust the French to house a cinema in a palace. ii. Beg forgiveness from the Metro stations, whose lines you always seem to double cross. Blame it on your heartstrings, or your ceaseless infatuations with all names beginning with S – Saint-Germain, Saint-Michel… (and yes, he too is a Saint). iii. Adopt arrondissements like you do the seasons; even Autumn needs a sea change and they say the Louvre is best in Spring. Bake bread, and bury the past. Plant lovelocks on bridges and peonies in paper sleeves; you will be long gone before Winter steals the leaves from your trees.

PHOTOGR APHY: JOSH COR KE

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iv. Rent a room on the Left Bank, order a dozen oysters, and smoke an endless amount of Gauloises on the balcony. Recreate his face in the pile of sucked shells and ash left at your feet. v. Walk along the Seine in the summertime, sticky with sweat and wet-thighed with surrender. You are a Venus de Milo missing more arms then just your own. vi. Finally, take the photocopied portrait of Godard from your pocket, and run barefoot through the Louvre. 12 minutes and 4 seconds. Cut your bangs but keep your lips bare, Odile, he likes these raw too.

NEWYORK i. Run away to New York, home to five boroughs, claw-footed bathtubs and American Dreams. ii. Discover your newfound love of bagels, brownstones, and Brooklyn: the county of Kings. Admonish yourself for eating too many carbs, and tearfully listen to Joanna Newsom on the fire escape. iii. Fall asleep naked in July; bask in the city’s stifling heat and overwhelming vacancy, and hang red, white, and blue from your fourth floor view. Redecorate, and I mean more than just your thrift shop awnings. iv. Develop a New York twang, and a penchant for over complicated “cawfee” orders (a venti, sugar-free, vanilla chai latte, with soy milk). Catch the subway to work, and slip your spare pennies into the palms of busking, bearded men. Press your tongue against the roof of your mouth and smile as the sliding doors take you away from them. v. Take the train to Coney Island, walk sandal-clad through throngs of tourists, and eat hand-churned ice cream out of waffle cones. Go home alone, licking the salt off your skin and the sweetness from your lips.

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vi. Take up jogging, or hot yoga. Plant succulents in glass jars and spend your Sundays in Washington Square Park. Join the Peace Corps; become a vegan. Wear vintage denim and write home to your mother once a fortnight. Allow her a small glimpse into your North Atlantic escape route through hastily scribed x’s and o’s.

Gotta go Ma, the world is calling.

LONDON i. Run away to London, where you’ll surrender yourself to the ironies of strangers, and bad weather. ii. Paint your lips often, and drink endlessly. There’s no shame in mispronouncing the Thames when you pursue the belief that Guinness is good for you. iii. Tally your days in shades of pink; take your pressed petals, your blushing cheeks and your words, and dry them inside the covers of a leather-bound book.

Relish in the only form of rent you know (ink-stained fingers and hopeful flower arrangements). iv. Wander under the pastel and pistachio glow of Notting Hill. Melt under its terraced facades, pinch yourself at every corner, and lose yourself within each coloured door. Deliberate over flavours of tea at Café Diana – what would Lady Di drink? Go with the Lady Grey, and revel in the comforts of your almost-namesake. v. Pack a picnic and your Polaroid camera; meet a man at noon, and let him kiss you atop Primrose Hill. Shriek with childlike delight as the clouds finally open up above you. Shed your summer skin in the pouring rain, with a man who does not know your name. vi. Habitually boil your kettle, and settle in amongst the paperbacks and pain`brushes you’ve let become a protective fortress around your bed. Whisper an unending amount of I Miss Yous before falling asleep amongst teacups of vodka and tears.

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ROME i. Run away to Rome, where you don’t speak the language but have no problem with being seduced by the Italian tongue. Bury your heart deep in the catacombs, and tell yourself that you are never coming home. ii. People-watch in pastel-hued piazzas; drink copious amounts of coffee, and carafes of Frascati. Cry when you see the Colosseum, and the Castel Sant’Angelo; you are the eleventh angel on Bernini’s Bridge, made of travertine marble and your traveller’s tears. iii. Ride a moped through the cobblestoned streets, professing your love for this city through side-view mirrors and wind-swept shouts of glee. Take every right turn, and lose yourself in a bid to feel free. iv. Elbow your way through a congregation of Sunday shoppers and market stalls.

Talk fresh produce and foreign politics, and soon, you too, will believe in the conviction of sweet fruit and soft honey. v. Tan your shoulders and waltz barefoot in the gardens of Villa Borghese. Get drunk on Prosecco and bare your soul to the Galleria ‘greats’: revel in their renaissance, your romanticism, and a glass of sparkling white. vi. Before you leave, bid farewell to your dreams as you toss them deep into the Trevi – who knew that a coin could be quite so heavy?

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BARCELONA i. Run away to Barcelona, where you will practice the rolling of R’s and pledge yourself to silent C’s: Barrrthelona. Braid your hair, and bask in the panoramic splendour of your Catalan city. ii. Bite your tongue as you count the celestial spires of Sagrada Familia; let its rippling curves of stone remind you of home, and surrender yourself entirely to its Gaudi, gothic, glory. iii. Make love under stars, dancing and exploring your way through the twisted labyrinth of laneways and bars. Marvel at the city’s man-made beaches, and its Magic Fountain of Montjuïc; make a toast to modernity, and bathe in the mirage of blue, purple, and pink. iv. Read poetry under the palm trees of the Plaça Reial, and relinquish your afternoons to romance and religion.Give thanks to the tapas Gods and yield yourself to foreign food and foreign friends. v. Surrender yourself to the Spanish sun; here you will hold planets in the palms of your hands, and lick universes into existence with the tip of your tongue. Fall asleep at sunrise, where your heart and belly will be full to the brim of tobacco, sangria, and him. vi. Navigate your way down the boulevards and The Besòs (river). Eat vanilla magnums, wear red lipstick, and very little else. Steal besos (kisses) from strangers and say goodbye to Spain.

FIRST PRIZE - POETRY

BLACK HOLES REBECA SCHNEIDER

Black holes, if one is unfamiliar with the concept, are huge; A great expanse of nothingness, a gaping chasm of emptiness.

Similar to the space behind the lids of your eyes when they flutter shut.

They span for kilometres, years, lifetimes: no end, no beginning.

Imagine standing, surrounded by a sea of darkness; When you first switch off the light and make a run for your bed, kind of darkness.

Say you do not reach the bed.

Swinging wildly around, you do not reach anything else, either.

Wardrobe, gone; desk, gone; floor, gone; ceiling, gone.

Just you.

And your flailing arms.

And your despair, Heavy as a rock in your stomach, Thick as bile in your throat.

Maybe if you run for days, Then walk when you cannot run anymore, Then crawl when you cannot walk anymore, Then drag yourself when you cannot crawl anymore.

Still, nothing.

It does not matter that your fingers desperately reach for something.

You do not even know if you have fingers to reach with.

There is nothing to grip, There will never be.

There will only ever be you In a black hole: Great, limitless, powerful, draining.

And you?

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You are so small.

Is there no way around this: This, the only way to describe what lives inside your chest?

Nothing escapes a black hole.

Except those things you cannot grasp.

The way flowers sway in the breeze, The idea of laughter.

(How strange that something should fill you with so much delight that it simply spills out of you.)

A scent of citrus blossoms in the air, Going to sleep and knowing you are loved, Feeling wind on your skin.

The movement of clouds across the sky: Slowly forming and reforming like melting wax in a lava lamp.

Friends looking at you fondly, A dog tugging at its leash in a desperate attempt to be pet by you, When you drive past someone and they are rocking out in their car – oblivious.

The momentary, fleeting feeling that you are okay.

These are things that cannot be taken away.

They fill the back hole in your chest As much as they can: Only a little.

Maybe it makes a difference, maybe it does not.

Wind on your skin, Citrus blossoms, Laughter.

And, maybe, that is enough for now.

SECOND PRIZE - FICTION

BOJANA’S CHOICE MAR A BL AZIC

The dolls are lying on their backs lined up in a perfect row on the bottom of the dry, empty green bathtub.

Seven-year-old Bojana, ladybird clips in her fine brown hair, is leaning over the edge carefully counting them. There are eight. But her mum Stana has specifically told her she can only take two.

Bojana wants Honey, but Honey will take up too much room in the car. She already takes up too much space in the tub. Honey has honey-blonde pigtails, wears a red pinafore, white shirt, white socks and red sandals. Her limbs look life-like and her blue eyes blink repeatedly when Bojana shakes her. Bojana wishes her dolls were skinnier, like Barbies but Bojana’s mum Stana has always dismissed Barbies as silly because they’re skinny and yet very expensive. But this Serbian Christmas, Stana surprised Bojana with a Barbie doll. Malibu Barbie. She wears a lilac nylon onepiece halter swimsuit, round lilac sunglasses and has her own beach towel. Bojana loves her.

‘Hello Barbie, you are pretty, do you want to come run away with me?’ Bojana picks her up and then studies the others before settling on Honey again.

She wishes she could take them all. Cindy, Mindy, Mary, Cathy, Candy and Mandy have all been bought on blue-collar wages during various sales at Target. Bojana imagines a wall of water drowning them in an instant. ‘It’s OK, I love all of you, and you and you and you,’ she assures them.

Her mum barges in, ‘Ajde! Shta radish tu?’ She doesn’t wait for an answer as she marches Bojana out, not noticing the dolls in their bathtub grave, and not giving Bojana a chance to say goodbye to them. ***

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Outside in the hot midnight air, her parents Stana and Voja argue in Serbian whispers in the driveway of their small, suburban two-bedroom fibro home as they finish packing their second hand Volkswagen Beetle. Bojana can see she’s to squeeze in the back seat with the pillows, blankets, crockery, shoes and suitcase, the same ugly brown faux leather one her parents keep telling her they’ve schlepped all the way from Yugoslavia. ‘Doshli smo sa jedan kufer,’ her parents declare almost on a daily basis. We came here with just one suitcase.

Bojana stands by helplessly, hugging Honey and Barbie waiting to make her way inside that tiny, hot, crowded cabin. ‘It’s OK Honey, it’s OK Barbie, we’ll be there soon,’ she whispers.

Bojana wishes the ugly brown suitcase didn’t take up so much space. Where are the rest of her toys going to fit? Her basket of playing cards, coloring books, crayons, figurines and ballerina jewelry box keeps being shifted around the car.

‘Nemozhesh sve da nosish!’ Fed up with the heat and the packing, her father Voja tells her off for trying to take too many toys and dumps them in the driveway. The jewelry box flings open and the tinkling sound of the ballerina spinning reverberates through the large silent backyard.

Silently sobbing, Bojana closes the jewelry box and takes her stuff inside the house, past the cheap, motley, mismatched vinyl furniture. There isn’t much, but she knows they have to leave it behind.

She lays her rejected toys on her parents thin mattress and makes her way through to the kitchen where a lawnmower lies on the linoleum floor under the small dining table pushed up against the dark green wall. Her father has dragged it inside so nobody will steal it.

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In the adjacent bathroom she kneels over the bathtub again, taking each doll and quickly kissing them through her tears. ‘Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.’ With both little hands she turns on the steely tap, adjusting the water so only some trickles out. She can’t stand the thought of one giant wave shocking them, annihilating them. They begin to float, gently bumping into one another. *** Bojana can barely breath in the heated and overstuffed beetle chugging down the Sturt Highway. It has no air-conditioning or radio. She winds down her window to draw some air. She’s careful not to stick her head out, her mum always warns her that an invisible man with a big sword will lop it off. But she rests Honey and Barbie on the window’s edge and admires how their hair flies. The highway’s flooded with headlights this night, crowded with fast cars, many towing caravans. Bojana doesn’t know that hundreds and hundreds of migrant families just like hers have packed their belongings and are fleeing Adelaide in a panic. Some have even sold their homes.

With little grasp of the English language, they’ve been spooked by media reports of a combined tidal wave and earthquake reportedly set to wipe out the entire city at lunch time the next day, January 19, 1976.

One of Honey’s red shoes soars off into the night, and then the other. Devastated by her loss, Bojana hugs her dolls and cries herself to sleep. ***

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She wakes to find it’s still nighttime and the VW beetle is parked at something resembling a drive-in carpark. So many cars, their headlights on, doors flung open, the smell of cigarette smoke blanketing the piping hot air. The music of the different cultures - Serbian, Croatian, Greek, Macedonian and Italian collide as they blare out of battery-operated cassette players.

Children run around, playing, screaming and laughing by the mighty Murray River in Renmark. Bojana slaps s a mosquito dead on her bare thigh. She wants no part of this. She wants to be back home with her dolls, her toys.

The hot steamy night turns into another hot day and the doomsday experience is creating new friendships. The migrant families are sharing cigarettes, sunscreen, food, beer and Coke, playing cards, listening to radio bulletins. Eventually someone tells Stana and Voja the coast is clear, literally.

Bojana doesn’t know who Don Dunstan is, but the Premier of South Australia has gone to Glenelg beach to prove the doomsday prediction is nonsense. There are barely any ripples in the water, much less a giant killer tidal wave. About two thousand people, some in flippers, have flocked to the shore to wait with him. So have media from Adelaide, Australia and the world.

Bojana does not understand any of this. She just can’t wait to run inside the minute the VW beetle turns into the driveway of their little fibro home. Still standing. On dry land.

Only the inside is flooded. From the bathroom tap running for the past two days.

Her dolls are floating on the kitchen floor, waiting for Bojana’s return.

SECOND PRIZE - POETRY

DISTILLATION CASEY MICHELL-TON KIN

Budding young architect Reclines in lounge room, leg Elevated from knee Surgery, in blue shirt And white footy shorts, low Cropped hair. Back of car drive To Roseworthy to jump From diving board, message: Year twelve retreat from heat Wave. Esky stocked empty Calories; young mind stocked Classroom memories.

Budding young architect Crouched over cracked surf board.

Door with no handle swings Open, spills harsh light on Leather chair in empty Room expecting toiletRoll cricket matches: “Winner gets dismembered Eyeglasses!” CDs and Playing cards strewn end to End – fortified region To attack disks of info

Pure drowning existence Beneath waves lapping from Bombs and flips. Uncertain Striped board shorts and long hair Placed in boot of own car: Consequence of drinking.

Straight roads turn suddenly – Forgetful sensation Of left or right; azure Sky of deepest summer; Clear bald life-filled roadside Landscape – dried body sprawled –

Behind plastic drum set Played shirtless by children Devoid of musical Potential. Elbow placed On brown leather couch next To empty used condom Crawling with swarm of mice Killed in couchfire on car Park turned grass tennis court.

Stolen sandwich board from Lost vase under jumper On eve of Good Friday.

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Budding young architect Claims: “healthy body is Healthy mind,” thus must walk And consider dreams to Make suburban horror Employing motif of Piss-covered soursobs – Oxalis pes-caprae – To demonstrate weed-growth Of ideas more fright’ning Than Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees combined.

Unopened red wine drunk During contemptuous Rare drive to smoke tailored Cigarettes. Elderly Manager with short curled Blonde hair, repeats end of Sentences to aid her Aged memory, answers Phone on palindromic Tram to say front desk will Be unmanned today when Tears are spilled on pillows.

PHOTOGR APHY: R ACH EL WONG

FICTION

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BEIGE BROADLOOM ELENA LUKINA

I got my first nosebleed while I was sitting in a government office, waiting for a nice woman called Mandy to photocopy some documents. A blinding pain flooded my skull and a torrent of blood shot out of my right nostril like someone turned on a tap. The one other person in the room, a woman several seats away, turned to watch me fall onto my knees, press my hands into my forehead, and emit a combination scream-gasp. I think she liked it.

The pain was over in two seconds, maybe three, and the haemorrhage stopped with it. There was a sprawling bloodstain on the beige broadloom and I stared at it, my mind blank from the shock. I swear I could feel my pupils shrink as the stain began to disappear; the carpet was absorbing it, sucking it in.

I turned to look at the woman (was she seeing this?), but there was no woman.

In her place sat a cream-coloured demon with shiny black pebbles for eyes. I felt momentarily paralysed while shivers ran through my body like centipedes. The Thing was big and very still, its presence simultaneously palpable and fuzzy, like it was existing between worlds. The air changed. I could tell this wasn’t a person in a costume. I stared at it. It stared back. Neither of us moved.

Mandy broke the spell when she returned with my papers. I looked down at my shirt, now marked with darkening blood, and reassured myself that this was real.

‘Mandy!’ I stood up shakily and clamped my hands on her shoulders. ‘Mandy, the carpet swallowed my blood and there’s a demon in that chair!’ I pointed at the thing in the seat and it grinned back with a lipless mouth.

‘Sorry about that,’ said Mandy, and it took me a second to realise that the apology hadn’t been addressed to me. She walked over to the demon and sat down beside it.

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‘Humans can often be disrespectful,’ she explained, ‘Their actions are heavily affected by their emotions.’ The thing turned to her and I made a run for the door, but it was locked and there was no glass. I plastered myself against the wall, gaping at Mandy and the Thing. They were both smiling at me.

‘Ms. March,’ Mandy said, totally calm, ‘I have some forms I’d like you to fill in.’

I could only stare in response. The blood was drying on my face. I was shaking.

‘Ms. March, I’d be glad to assist you with your financial difficulties. In fact, I have a wonderful proposition for you. Prince Vassago here needs to find… housing, just like you do. Only temporary, of course, a few months at the most, while he takes care of some business on Earth which requires a… human vessel. Of course, as the host of His Royal Highness, all your needs would be met.’ She pressed the tips of her fingers together. ‘‘Proposition,’ I said, ‘that means I have a choice, right? I can refuse, can’t I?’ ‘Well…’ Mandy looked at the demon, then back at me. ‘Uh… no.’

A white tornado tore through my nostril into my brain and I blacked out for half a year.

They made me sign a contract where I wouldn’t tell anyone, but of course I told everyone. My friends were a little disturbed at first, although it did explain why I’d acted like a total asshole for six months. And I mean… I woke up in a nice apartment, money in my account… so I can’t really complain. In all honesty, I’ll probably come back next week to see who else they’ve got; I’m open for business.

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PAINTING THE SKY ANN JACKSON

‘I want to paint the sky,’ you said.

Our last night together. We sprawled on the sodden grass, drunk on the thrill of rebellion. The damp numbed my toes, and the freezing wind made my skin crawl and goosebump. But you lay with bare arms outstretched, oblivious to the cold.

You pointed out shapes in the stars. Look, you urged. A tortoise. A tiger. A rabbit in the moon. But I only saw a black sky, the moon a jagged fingernail.

I’d always known you’d be the first to leave. You were quicker and smarter, better at everything. You never cared what anyone thought. Not your parents, nor the other kids, who laughed at us and pulled faces. And you had that stupid obsession with etching your mark on the world. You wanted to rip up the clouds and stain the sky a different colour. I was the one always limping behind, never sure of what to say or do. And even now, here in the field, I couldn’t find the right words. The minutes bled past, and I said nothing.

Look, you said, and pointed.

A pale swipe across the sky, like a brush stroke. I scrambled to my feet. You rose to stand beside me. You weren’t scared. To you, it was something magical. The glowing head, and the tail of light streaking behind in a desperate chase it could never win. The glare grew brighter. I raised a hand to shield my eyes. A piercing whine tore through the air, rising to a screech.

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An explosion shook the field. Then silence. Darkness. I glanced up. The light was gone, and a ribbon of reddish dust blurred the stars. A biting sense of loss plunged in my stomach. Soon you would be gone, too.

The air shivered. Inside the house, someone lit a lamp, tossing faint light over to where we stood. I sat back down on the wet grass and watched you stare at the sky bleached orange.

‘Beautiful,’ you whispered. Your voice nudged the bruised air. My eyes traced your tousled hair, flushed cheeks, and glittering eyes. ‘Yes,’ I said, but your gaze was fixed on the sky, and you didn’t realise I was looking at you.

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DAISY JAKE BROWN

Let me just start by clarifying that I never intended to be here this long. This was always supposed to be a temporary gig. I guess it still is. I mean, aren’t they all? Isn’t life just some shady part-time job before we move onto something else?

It’s 9PM on a Friday. I’m here at the office. So far, I’ve only been interrupted by two customers, both of them seeking unsavoury enhancers. There’s a radio playing behind the counter in the storefront, but I prefer to keep that door closed. I put on a Tom Waits album to mask the sound, but it doesn’t do a whole lot for the atmosphere. The lyrics There’s a big dark town, it’s a place I’ve found There’s a world going on underground Linger without a trace of irony. Over the gravelly wailing, a clock reading ‘CALIFORNIA EXOTIC NOVELTIES’ ticks on dutifully. That’s a nice way to put it. We sell ‘EXOTIC NOVELTIES’. The clock is covering up a large crack in the wall. The only other adornment is an advertisement from a distributor featuring a leather-clad woman inexplicably humping a corporate logo. Her leering expression suggests she has not yet paid off the stilettos she’s wearing.

It didn’t use to be so empty here. I mean, it used to be a husk, but now it’s just a husk of a husk. The room beyond the office appears to have never been finished.

The plaster has fallen away and exposed the crumbling brick around the doorway.

A wax black-and-white-tiled mat is draped over the concrete floor, with the white squares stained brown. Sickeningly bright green and yellow paint is peeling around the edges of the room. The air is thick with melted silicone and asbestos.

Aside from some loose fixtures and construction materials scattered about, all that remains in this room is a broken mirror and a bucket to urinate in. At one point, it was filled with all kinds of miscellaneous debris. Stacks of mouldy paperbacks on subject matter ranging from multiple orgasms to government conspiracies. ‘Vintage’

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vibrators. Milk crates filled with unmarked VHS tapes. Then there was Daisy.

Daisy sat in the corner of the room next to the safe, squatting in a plastic tube.

Her fake eyelashes made her eyes look huge. Her wiry-blonde wig was always falling off. Her mouth was agape, but she was unable to speak. She was made out of questionable silicone, but she was the realest thing in this store.

Daisy was here when I first started working. I don’t know how many years she had been there before that. Judging by her pale-yellow complexion, which had presumably once been porcelain-white, she had been in that room for over a decade. There was no story of how she ended up there. She might have once been a promotional display. She might have been ordered by a customer who never came to pick her up. She was an object created for the sole purpose of being wanted, and nobody wanted her. She was tired and worn out from waiting all this time, but I never knew her any other way.

She used to make me jump every time I would enter the room. Her eyes would stare at me through the dark. It didn’t take me long to get used to her presence, though.

She became a familiar fixture, one that would keep company during long shifts. I would see her staring into space and chuckle to myself. Then I would go back to staring into space myself.

I remember the time she almost lost her head. I damn near had a heart attack.

I had been sleeping on the couch in the office most of the week, closing the store at night and opening in the morning. Drinking is a way to pass the time during weeks like this. It also helps me function in a state that is neither asleep nor awake. The liquor store is right around the corner, so I can close up shop for five minutes any time I need to go buy some beer or a bottle of something.

The streets are pretty sleazy around here. There’s always somebody yelling or

PHOTOGR APHY: JOSH COR KE

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getting into a fight. Walking alone at night isn’t recommended, although nothing has ever happened to me. Nobody ever disturbs the guy who works at the sex store.

That is, unless they’re actually inside the store. Then they’ll talk for hours about nothing. Sometimes people come in completely barefoot, wanting to escape the heat. Other times, they’re just lonely.

A man once told me about his friend who was good at stealing things. He once stole a boat. He just got out of jail. Now he’s convinced there’s a microchip inside his brain.

‘It’s sad. It’s all gone to hell. Everything has changed.’

He repeated this over and over again like a mantra.

At closing time, I went into the back room to drop the cash takings into the safe, a routine I’m usually accustomed to performing in a deep state of intoxication. Then I heard a slow creaking behind me. I turned around to see the glue slowly peeling around Daisy’s neck. Her head lopped over dully to one side, bobbing up and down.

The shock was so great that I fell to the floor. She was literally falling to pieces.

Spending too much time in this place can do that to someone. But Daisy never completely lost her head. I laughed alone to myself.

The room is empty now. The paperbacks and VHS tapes have been taken to the dump. I don’t know what they did with Daisy. Sometimes I still expect to see her staring at me, but then I remember she’s gone. And I’m still here.

But hey, what’s that old saying? If life gives you lemons, you better take them because do you have any idea how expensive lemons are in this economy?

Life, after all, is just a temporary gig.

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FAMILY MEETINGS JASMIN SEARLE

I don’t remember Dad leaving; one day he just doesn’t live with us anymore. He calls us from a mine site, on a phone that has a two second delay. I hear my own voice echoing back to me before Dad responds.

‘G’day Blossom.’

‘Hi Dad... Hi Dad. Can you come see us soon? See us soon?’

‘Nah not yet Blossom, got six weeks on and then a week off, then another six weeker.

How’s school?’

‘Fine... Fine.’

‘Gotta go, Kiddo. Love ya to the moon and back.’

‘Bye Dad... Bye Dad.’ In our first house with Mum, the only furniture we have are our beds and four large square cushions on the lounge room floor. The CD player sits on the carpet in reach of the wall socket. Taiya and I put on concerts, our voices bouncing off the bare walls.

Every now and then we come home and find a brown Anglicare bag on the doorstep with a pumpkin inside, or fruit. Mum never finds out who signed us up. As we move from house to house we gather things with us. Each time we move there’s a little more to pack.

One day Dad calls and there’s no delay. The connection is clear – his voice crisp.

PHOTOGR APHY: K ALI IVANCE VIC

34

‘Heya Blossom. Just wanted to give you a bell, let ya know I’m in town and...’

‘You’re here? When can you come over?’

‘Well I got in last week but headin’ off again in twenty...’

‘You’re leaving?’

‘Yeah, gotta hit the road to get back to work tomorrow. Just wanted to check in.

How’s your big sister?’

‘Fine.’

‘Oh great. No news is good news eh?’

Sometimes, but not very often, Mum calls a family meeting. We sit at the table, put together from a flat-pack. Mum says, “Okay girls, we’re down to the last twenty and we have to pick which bill isn’t getting paid.” She puts it to the vote. These meetings feel very important. I sit with hands clasped together on the table top, back straight.

Then I get the giggles. The options are: fuel, water, electricity, or phone. One of them has to be cut off. Taiya votes fuel. “Okay,” Mum says. “No fuel in the car.

That means walking to school.” It’s a long way from this house. Taiya takes her vote back. I vote to turn off the electricity. It’ll be fun, like camping at home. I get outvoted. In the end the phone is cut off. We can’t call our friends when we get home from school.

One afternoon, Mum is late to pick us up. All the other kids drift off, climb into four-wheel-drives, argue over who gets the front seat, head to soccer, to netball, to friend’s houses. Taiya and I sit on the steps with our backpacks at our feet.

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‘I’m hungry,’ I say.

‘You know, most of the time when you’re hungry you’re actually just thirsty.’ She takes my hand and leads me to the water fountains. I turn the handle and lean down, slurping a sip of water before it falls away. ‘More!’ Taiya says. ‘You have to get full.’ I try to fill myself up with fountain water but it’s hard to drink deeply from the pencil-thin stream. The principal comes out of the office, handbag over her shoulder.

‘Oh.’ She’s surprised to find us here. ‘Are you waiting to get picked up?’ We nod. I wipe the water of my chin with the sleeve of my school jumper. ‘Do you need to call home?’ I look at Taiya.

‘Can’t,’ Taiya says. ‘We didn’t pay the bills.’ The principal’s eyebrows go up. Her mouth is a little ‘O’. Behind her, Mum’s yellow station wagon pulls up. We clamber in, Taiya in the front, me in the back. There are groceries on the seat and I rummage through for an apple.

‘Sorry girls, how was your day?’ Mum is flustered.

‘Go-od.’ We say it in unison. Taiya smiles at me in the rear-vision mirror, glad she didn’t win the vote for no fuel in the car.

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NEW AGE ARCHAEOLOGY COURTNEY BRISTOW

The soft flicker of torchlight lit my path as I made my way over the piles of mortar and rubble. I followed the fluorescent markers onwards, hoping I wasn’t too far from the meeting point. This was the expedition of a lifetime. I’d been fascinated by Earth history for as long as I could remember; from primary school projects to my PhD thesis, the Earth and its denizens had been an ever-allusive mystery that I’d vowed to solve. Now I was here. The atmosphere, a toxic mix of carbon monoxide, methane and sulphur, meant that I needed an air-purifying mask to breathe. Apparently it was once possible to live on this planet without such apparatus, though looking out through the thick smog, it was hard to believe. Humanity had extinguished the planet’s resources long; forcing a pioneer fleet to start a brand new settlement on New Earth.

‘Nick! Over here!’ called a voice in the darkness.

A smile spread across my face. Well, the closest thing I could manage whilst wearing a purifier.

‘Hector!’ I called back; hurrying closer to the source of the shout.

Hector was taller than I’d imagined. During our correspondence I’d imagined a wizened old man, with a long white beard and a hover-chair for zipping over the ruins. The reality couldn’t have been more different. He towered over me; he must have been at least six foot. Strong muscles bulged from under his hazmat suit and dark stubble grew across his square jaw, protruding from his own purifier. His dark eyes twinkled in the torchlight. ‘Great to finally meet you,’ he said, grasping my hand and shaking it with such a tight grip I felt my knuckles crack.

‘It’s a pleasure,’ I replied, trying not to wince.

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‘Rightio, what you’ll be wanting is over this way. Watch your step though, the ground is super unstable.’

‘Understood,’ I nodded.

We crossed the wasteland, the whole place eerily silent. The quiet was only interrupted by Hector, as he explained, ‘These ruins have stood for thousands of years. It’s thought to have been some sort of shrine to the ancient gods.’

‘Amazing,’ I breathed, admiring the strange, metallic structures that stood in various stages of decomposition around me.

Through the dark smog, we approached a large building; incredibly still mostly intact. Flanked by fluorescent markers, a cave-like entrance appeared in the building before us. ‘Alright, we’re here,’ grinned Hector. ‘After you, lad.’

I dipped my head to duck under the low doorway. Shining my torch around the cavern, it was plain to see that the room hadn’t been touched in centuries. Layers of dust coated every surface and rubble spilled over where parts of the roof had collapsed.

‘Mind your step kid, it can be a little rocky,’ warned Hector, stepping in behind me.

‘This was a place of worship you say?’ I asked, still staring awe at the enormous cavern.

‘It’s hard to say,’ mused Hector. ‘Most of the artefacts have deteriorated, however there is some evidence that this was once a place of great learning, that celebrated the ancient deities.’

He strode past me, following the path his own torch made. ‘This way. I think you’ll find this exciting.’

Hector brought me to a section of the building that had not yet collapsed. Through the haze, I could make out vague shapes inscribed on the wall. ‘Go ahead’ encouraged Hector.

I walked closer, my heart racing. This moment was everything I had been dreaming of. I raised my gloved hand and swiped it over the thick layer of dirt that obscured the wall. Dust clouds billowed through the air as my torch light was able to capture the image properly for the first time. My breath caught in my throat. It was the most beautiful, awe-inspiring vision I had ever seen. Tears began to fill my eyes, as I was able to behold its true wonder. ‘O shit,’ I breathed, filled with emotion.

‘It’s dat boi.’

38

YOUNG LIFE CATS

It’s the Adelaide five o’clock air I love, when wind has stopped and foggy breaths hang as clouds. Still moments that puncture the dread of sleep and the disgust of consciousness.

My earliest memory is of walking downstairs, stepping silent to not wake my parents.

On tiptoes I open the front door and walk through, experiencing the silence of the morning world. Noone exists beyond me and dead leaves hanging from trees lit by streetlamps.

Yesterday I meandered day-lit streets, watching people glide through town. Hipsters smoked cigarettes in ball-crushing jeans. Two businessmen in middling-blue office suits boarded the tramline at different stops; they looked identical, talking through bluetooths attached beside greased hairs. I felt itchy covered in natural oils from days without shower. A bird landed beside an old man who watched the world pass on a park bench, too old to live anything but vicariously.

My uncle Jeremy once wisened me: ‘Scott, we are not so different, you and I. We are divided by age and experience, but our lives are close to the same. All lives are close to the same.’ His pale eye scoured my dull expression. ‘I see you do not believe me now, but one day you will understand.’ I believe him now. These street people are me from a different life. A few years later, a few years earlier. Born into different classes, acquaintances and friends.

PHOTOGR APHY: K ALI IVANCE VIC

40

Two months ago an acquaintance asked me, ‘Do you remember last year, on acid, what you said?’ I replied ‘yes.’ I remembered the conversation, but not the specifics.

‘Your words have been going around and around and around in my head. Especially recently. They are so relevant to my life right now. Thank you,’ he said. I hugged him, kissing his cheek; happy to have helped, however falsely. When we talked last year the advice I spent was expected to be forgot, or taken to mean nothing. ‘How much of an impact have my thoughtless actions made on those I don’t know?’ I asked myself in bed that night.

Last year I ate ice-cream and watched the sun set at Henley Beach. ‘End of the line.’

The bus driver growled. Absorbed in reading, all stops had eschewed my attention.

A Busker sang low melodies and I poured two dollars into his hat. My feet grew cold, forcing return to home and dinner. This slow evening sent me reeling into fugue.

I spoke three words for two days. Colours were muted and held bright contrast at their edges. Reality stretched thin.

In thirteen months I meet a young couple from Sweden. One of them wants to be a tattoo artist, his boyfriend is happy to finish his accounting degree in four months. I chat to them about film and screen media. The artist thinks advertising

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is an absolute evil. The accountant believes it is an extension of human nature and cannot be judged morally. They will argue on and off about this topic. Two months later the pair split in a heated debate. They would have married. And adopted.

Tomorrow I review my life in a notebook, stuttering fingertips recording memories.

I drink black tea early to keep me alert and red tea late to rest. I trace the outlines of my personal philosophy, trying to discover what I believe and what I believe in.

My introspection won’t end in a night. Or a month.

Now I flick through yellowed pages of a torn phonebook in a dilapidated house. My friends call to me from the room with tinny dance music playing through a phone.

The musty smells of mold and dust overindulge my nose. Graffiti marks the faded, off-cream walls. ‘Who am I? What am I doing?’ I quietly ask the empty room. No reply comes, save low-fidelity rhythms and wooden floorboards’ creaks. I used to love this house, when we first broke in and drank underage vodka. I’m drinking legal goon, now. I breathe deep and sigh. ‘Doesn’t matter,’ I whisper. And shout, ‘I’m coming. You dicks.’ I stand to move. To dance the night away, while there’s still time.

42

HAPPINESS BEGETS MISERY K AROLIN K A DAWIDZIAK-PACEK

They tell me the first few weeks would be hard. I will find myself reaching out at night to an empty bed, cold sheets twisting around my limbs. ‘You’ll call him, and beg him to come back,’ the women gossip while peeling sweet potatoes. I don’t think they fully understand our nightly marital chats though. ‘Move your thigh, you’re crushing me!’ I hiss as I struggle to extract myself from under his bulk. He instead issues the classical refrain: ‘Don’t imitate those shrewish wives who clash with their husbands.’ How can soundless sleep compare with that?

My morning routine remains unchanged. I kiss away Ruixi’s sleepiness, and wait until she proudly climbs onto her chair before serving her yoghurt. Then, the inlaws breakfast: salted duck eggs with watery congee, no chilli oil.

Although there are still vegetables to be peeled, I flop onto the couch with my phone, which has been vibrating for some time now. You there, or still busy playing the filial daughter-in-law? We’re going to Cunxi tonight. ***

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Sunlight withdraws its long fingers from the red roofs, making cracked tiles and dusty curved edges appear almost new. We balance on a small path near the road, avoiding broken farm tools scattered here and there. People are starting to emerge from their houses, and the smell of meat being fried makes my mouth water.

‘Stay away from the road; what if Liu sees us? Oh, we just needed a break from embroidery, so you know, we just took a five kilometre stroll in our dresses and full makeup, as you do! He’ll tell his wife, and the gossip will get to our in-laws!’ Jiang exclaims.

The strap around my ankle slips, rubbing against my skin. ‘These heels are killing me. Give me five minutes.’ I say, pausing near the village gates. ‘Hurry up. It’ll be summer holidays soon, and the men will come back; then you’ll get your fill of being still,’ the girls say.

They disappear into the darkness. I move away from the gates and sit down, pulling the shoes off. Blood returns to my feet, and I sigh.

‘Are you alright?’ A melodious voice breaks my life’s melancholy. I look up.

I quickly slip my shoes back on and wince as I tighten the straps. Then he is at my side, so fast I even don’t notice him approach. Nimble fingers probe my ankle gently, the cold pads of his fingers a salve.

‘Sir, thank you, but I’ll be fine now,’ I say. He looks up from my foot, and our gazes lock. His eyes are the darkest black. The wind arrives then, and whips around my cheongsam. I put one hand on my waist to stop the flap from flying, and he puts his hand on mine, our fingers weaving together like red thread. ***

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His hand skims down the side of my body, and I fight away a laugh. ‘Shh! Ruixi is just on the other side of this wall! And the inlaws are two doors down!’

‘I know,’ he mouths, and places his lips on my neck, tongue darting around like a snake. I press my lips together, hands clenching from the effort of silence.

Suddenly, his weight rolls off me, and with the barest of whispers, he slides underneath the bed. I poke my head out of the covers, trying to breathe lightly.

Ruixi’s sleepy face peers out from behind the door, her favourite grey rabbit underneath her arm. ‘Mama sick? Mama have fever?’ I smile at her round, red cheeks. ‘No, Ruixi, Mama just had a bad dream.’ She comes closer. Two more steps and she will see him if she gazes down.

One careful step after another, Ruixi clambers up the small footrest and onto the bed. ‘Mama sleep with Ruixi if Ruixi has bad dream. So Ruixi sleep with Mama,’ she burbles.

My body is relaxed, the sweat drying. Her soft body is warm against me, and I smell soy bean milk on her breath as she settles herself. As her eyelids start to fall, her small hand clutches my nipple. I wrap both arms around her, and we drift off to sleep. ***

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Now I have learnt one thing. The pain in your heart doesn’t go away when you change your surroundings, not even if you end up in a place your iPhone can’t recognise.

My phone tinkles. ‘It’s five pm,’ a tinny voice rings out, and Ruixi’s photo pops up on the screen. I see her shy smile, her hand clumsily grasping a daffodil, fingers wet with sap, before the photo disappears.

The sound of train tracks vibrates in my head, and I swallow thick saliva. I stand up and walk down the swaying hallway to the bathroom. Here, shadows from the thin bar of light above the toilet grin, musky arms try to touch me, poke me, pull at my clothes. They are anorexic, hairless, their bones hard, not my husband’s soft, fleshy mass, nor the long, lean limbs I spend endless hours stroking underneath the blanket, unwilling to get out although sweat coats our bodies and will turn the mattress an ugly yellow that I will have to wash out later while Ruixi dances around my feet, and I flick water at her and she shrieks as the stream hits her smile coated with dimples — ‘Honey, are you alright?’ The voice is soothing, a river flowing over scorched rocks.

I wipe my brow. Why am I so sweaty? ‘Give me a minute,’ I say, and splash my face with water. In the broken mirror, I survey my reflection. Cracked eyes stare out of a pink face ringed with sweat drops. One more splash, and the drops are gone.

‘Honey, come out. Please. I woke up and you were gone — are you really okay? It’s your first train journey, I know. Don’t lock yourself in there — let me help you.’

With wet fingers, I undo the lock and inch by inch, slide open the door. ***

46

PEOPLE DO THE WATCHING FOR YOU P.K. STALENHOEF

Next to dying, the worst thing someone can do to you is change. And look, I know we all change; but most of the time, with the people we love, we change together.

When Jaz left Adelaide it was like we both kicked the changing into hyper-drive.

Of course, being the one left behind, I didn’t want to do any of the things we did together: the movies, the walks on the beach, the vegan restaurants (there’s only three good ones) – none of it. It all hurt too much. Still does. Fuck knows how we stayed in contact for five years and organised catching up today. Pretty impressive considering I blocked every online profile she has. I didn’t want to; but I couldn’t watch her live.

The funny thing is people do the watching for you. I heard her stories through friends; all the crazy things she’d done... It accumulated over the years. I had the skeleton without the muscles; the timeline without the actual history.

And even that was too much.

The last time we saw each other we were a couple. Still in the grips of peak-love.

Right when you start to cruise, you know? The point where you think, ‘Oh shit.

This girl could be the one that ruins my life.’ We dated a year, even though I knew she had a nursing job lined up overseas.

The day she left we went to this new vegan restaurant with her family. Everyone was crying except me – I went cold. She held me and said the last year was one of the

PHOTOGR APHY: JOSH COR KE

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best she’d had. I said some bullshit about people in London needing her more than I ever could. She said she was sorry she ruined the fourth good vegan restaurant in the city.

I have this memory of her: it’s a warm day in the Barossa and we’d stopped to relax on the grass outside one of the countless places known for Shiraz that we couldn’t afford. I’d already told her I loved her but she hadn’t said it back. I didn’t care; she said it in other ways. We were laying on our stomachs and watching a group of drunk twenty-somethings play hide and seek in broad daylight.

‘I have something to tell you.’ She said.

‘OK?’ I replied.

‘I love you too.’

Yep, life ruined.

So we dove in to the relationship thinking it was better to take all we could from a bad deal. I don’t regret it. But it was a once in a lifetime kinda thing.

Why meet in the same place we left it? She’s probably a stranger now. Years in emergency care, parallel universes with other men, and a lifetime away from this shithole town will do that. And what have I done all this time?

Enough to change too, I suppose. ButI don’t know what scares me more: whether I’ve changed too much, or whether I haven’t changed at all.

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BLOOD AND ROSE MAX WURM

ROSE Gonnggggg. The grandfather clock struck twelve, mighty in voice.

Ogden was in a kitchen. His kitchen? Perhaps. A young girl stood beside him.

‘Who’re you?’

The girl just looked at him, transfixed.

‘Who’re you?’ Ogden repeated. This was awfully strange, he couldn’t recall why he was in a kitchen, or who this girl was, although he knew he was Ogden.

‘Lydia,’ the girl spoke, curiously, ‘you don’t remember?’

‘No … should I?’ This was very peculiar.

‘You really don’t remember?’

‘No.’ ‘Here, eat this, it might help.’ Lydia reached behind him, producing a carrot. Ogden couldn’t see how eating a carrot would help, but took it anyway.

Ogden had only taken one bite when Lydia took the carrot away again. ‘That’s probably enough,’ she laughed, which only furthered Ogden’s perplexity.

‘Where am I?’ ‘Your home, Ogden.’ She smiled at him with the most beautiful smile he had ever seen. His interest was piqued.

‘What am I doing here? Who are you?’

‘You cut yourself,’ Ogden observed a reddening bandage around his finger, ‘I gave you some of this to help with the pain,’ she pointed towards a small bottle on the counter; the label read ‘Drop of Rose’. ‘As to who I am,’ Lydia took a step toward him, ‘I’m your secret lover, Ogden. It pains me so, that you do not recognise my face.’

Her tone was familiar, like he had known her his entire life. Her nature was divine, as if God himself had taken female form. As he looked at her, light seemed to radiate

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from her golden wisps of hair. This was his true love, he remembered, and he kissed her right there, fervently, as if he had not seen her for months. Neither of them cared that Ogden’s parents were surely within earshot.

‘I truly love you, Lydia.’

‘And I you.’

Slithers of Ogden’s memory were coming back to him. He remembered now. Lydia and Ogden had been infatuated with each other for years, only he lacked the courage to introduce her to his father. His father would not approve of Lydia; of that Ogden was certain.

And yet, it was such a shame that their love could only exist in secrecy; he wanted to marry her, and have a dozen children. He loved her more than anything.

‘Lydia, my sweet,’ he broke away from the kiss.

‘What is it, my love?’

Ogden paused. ‘I… I want to introduce you to my father, and... I would have your hand in marriage,’ he said as his injured hand shook nervously. She would certainly refuse.

‘Yes! Yes, yes, yes!’

Ogden was beyond ecstatic, ‘so you truly want this?’

‘I want the world to know, my love.’

Further words escaped him. His desire for Lydia was unparalleled in this moment, he wanted her more than anything. They kissed again, and Lydia pushed him against the counter, holding his face in one hand, and placing the other on the― ‘Oww! I cut my finger!’ Lydia screamed, pulling her hand away from the bloodied knife on the cutting board.

‘My sweet! Are you okay?’

‘It hurts, Ogden, but I shall be fine.’

Ogden snatched the roll of bandage and dressed her wound. ‘Here, have some of this, will you?’ Ogden poured a spoonful of ‘Drop of Rose’.

‘Ogden, I don’t know …’ Lydia backed away, appearing frightened of the medicine.

‘Please, my love, I cannot see you in pain like this.’

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Lydia eventually conceded, ‘okay…’

Lydia had only just swallowed the medicine when not a second later Ogden’s father walked into the kitchen, bemused, ‘what’s going on here?’

Ogden braced himself, ‘Father, this is Lydia. We are in love and we are getting married.’

BLOOD Lydia looked around, feeling dizzy. There was a sour taste on her tongue. A boy was next to her, handsome, and younger than herself. Where was she? A kitchen? Her kitchen? Perhaps.

‘Who’re you?’

The boy seemed confused, ‘Ogden, don’t you remember?’

‘No…’ Her eyes gravitated to a small bottle labelled ‘Drop of Rose’, ‘what’s this?’

‘I just gave it to you, it’s supposed to help with pain,’ then he added, ‘your finger.’ It indeed appeared as though Lydia had cut herself.

Lydia examined the fine print of the label: Drop of Rose: a miracle remedy to soothe any pain!

Side effects may include memory loss and mixed desires.

Mixed desires. Lydia glanced back up at Ogden. His face was so familiar, like she had known him her entire life. His nature was divine, as if God himself had taken male form. As she looked at him, light seemed to radiate from his golden wisps of hair.

‘So, Ogden, do you have a lady friend?’

An alarmed expression arose on his face, ‘why, of course not!’

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‘Then you’re probably in need of one,’ she grinned deviously.

Now he just looked confused, ‘what? No, I… I do have one.’

‘You’re lying.’

‘I do! A secret one.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘It’s true,’ Ogden looked worried, ‘I just… can’t tell father.’

‘Mm.’ Lydia had heard enough. Ogden was telling lies so that he didn’t have to kiss her, but Lydia’s desire was only growing stronger.

Memory loss. The words floated back into her mind. Of course. That explained why she couldn’t remember where she was. An idea sprung to mind.

‘Can you dice these vegetables? My hand still hurts.’

‘Uh, okay,’ he began dicing. Lydia knocked Ogden’s hand.

‘Oww! I cut my finger!’

‘Aww, poor Ogden. Let me bandage it for you.’

‘It hurts,’ he said, once Lydia was finished.

‘Here, take some of this,’ she poured a spoonful of ‘Drop of Rose’, ‘hold on.’

Lydia grabbed an un-chopped carrot from the cutting board, licked it thoroughly from top to tail while Ogden watched, then replaced it. ‘Go ahead.’

Ogden hoped there was nothing wrong with the medicine, his sister had been acting quite strangely ever since taking it.

Gonnggggg. It was twelve o’clock.

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SOFT EMMA HEYEN

I live through books. I imagine I could be Peter Rabbit, Harry Potter, or a tulip in a Sylvia Plath poem. I read widely because I want to live widely.

I sit, and I read, and the world is quiet. I begin my day.

I take advantage of the early morning sun. I can never decide whether to watch the window and feel it wash over me, or let it light up the words to soak it in the same way I do the pages.

The words pass as slowly as I want to wake up, before Megan has her tea or our roommate trails out of her room to have a shower.

My favourite moments are quiet and soft. They lack the clutter of noise. Sounds are far away, downstairs on the street, permeating the walls with a soft buzz. The kettle is humming on the stove, and I head over with my thumb on the spine of this morning’s chapter, holding it in place until I’m ready.

I choose where I wanted to be. I learnt I could find this calm, and I worked for it against the feeling I get in the depths of my stomach when the world around me is dissonant. Memories of times I chose myself replace every time my autonomy was taken. I tell the people I love what I want. My mother is more gentle, less hardened.

We had to come together before we could continue. I call more. Every conversation she gives me one more laugh, another kind word, and I write them down to keep them safe. I record them to retain their truth because I can’t always trust myself not to falter in my knowledge that we can always improve. That I can always choose love over bitterness and resentment.

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I smell flowers. They cut through my thoughts and bring the clarity I crave. Flowers are complex - their growth, their need for loving and nurturing. The care I take is what someone else receives. I am paid in soft sighs and bright eyes that I never see, a loved one presenting my work combined with theirs; their thoughts, their love, their care. Birthdays, anniversaries, congratulations. Get better soon. I was just thinking of you, and I know you wish you had a rose garden, so I’ve brought you something to inspire you like you inspire me.

I write my love poems with daffodils, chrysanthemums, sweet peas and birds of paradise. She is the sun and I turn towards her for light.

I prefer middles over beginnings and ends. I never thought I would feel the same way about my days as I do about fictional characters’. There are the same builds, crescendos and lulls as a narrative. They are both tangible in my hands. Both experiences are uniquely my own. Just like someone else’s complex imagined adventure, I do not know where my own will take me, but I am delighted.

I try things that are a little harder. I pick a novel gathering dust that I was never interested in before, but deserves a chance. I plant a seed, not a seedling. I go out on a limb, and she responds in kind. My life is a tangled web of chances, failures and triumphs.

When flowers wilt, they are pressed into pages. Two parts of my life, two experiences that bookmark my days, come together. I step around the coffee table books stacked on one another, because it was the way my mother taught me. The more pressure, the more beautiful the end result will be.

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MIME GAMES NAVAR AMICI

The four walls shrunk around him. His only option was to stand and climb from the box in which he hid. Arms stretched, he removed the lid and was hit in the face by a jet of water. Laughter. Laughter all around. An audience to his misery applauded and cheered at the great humiliation they’d been privileged to witness. Was he glad to make these strangers so happy? Not at all! Quite the opposite in fact.

Furious, he ripped the cardboard that confined his legs, closing in, inch by inch.

Holding two walls in each arm, the crowd roared and offered a standing ovation as reward for his ridiculous charade. A puddle of water lay at his feet, made of the fountain that rejected his face. Having despised his appearance for longer than memory remembered, he understood the water’s position and empathised with its preference for the floor. The spotlights above spun in hypnotic rings. The yellow beams struck the object of his gaze and reflected back his own ridiculous image.

Holding his arms out so that he formed a T, clutching at the cardboard walls of his deconstructed hideaway, he looked like a bird. Though without feathers, he was a naked bird. He felt naked. He looked out at the black mass, unable to see more than that. He knew better. He knew they were there. He imagined the salted taste of each tear as it ran down contorting cheeks, their ugly faces delighting in his despair.

He took an exaggerated step. Cautious. The light stretched and stopped before the edge of an open space. It didn’t matter. Experience had taught him to always stay vigilant. There was nothing more dangerous than complacency. Surrounded by shadows containing in them the dark depths of his imagination.

No. Stop! He had to concentrate. Fixating on the void as it approached him, a hand

PHOTOGR APHY: JOSH COR KE

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slowly raised and reached to grasp the emptiness. There was something there, solid and impermeable. He could feel it, though his eyes betrayed him.

Feeling helplessly a panel of glass. He ran his hand along it, and in a moment of sudden inspiration ran to escape it.

BANG. His head collided with another invisible wall. A tear trickled down his face and encouraged the same from a crowd now in raptures.

Panicked. Frightened. He pushed with frantic hands against the invisible fortress that rose around him. He closed his eyes, desperate for a moment of clarity. It didn’t come. Squeezing his eyes shut. Gripping his hair with clenched fists. His body tensed all over. A manic scream! His jaw wide. Eyes bulging from its skull.

Veins thick ran like rivers above his brow. But there was no sound. Without even the solace of agony’s impassioned voice, he had only a single option remaining. A last resort. Making two fists, he pursed his lips and charged toward the invisible obstruction to his freedom. He thumped the enclosure with all of his might. His efforts went unheard. Not a single sound. He wanted them to know his struggle. To feel his pain. They didn’t understand. If they did, then why were those sadistic cunts laughing at him? He wanted to yell ‘FUCK YOU’. He wanted to hurt every single one of them. Wanted them to know what it felt like. The anger simmering inside of him had already boiled over and spilt all over the floor. Tears joined the puddle at his feet. They could not stand another second of existence, part of such a pathetic wretch, and fled at the first opportunity. He would have too, if he could.

Dejected. Defeated. He slumped to the ground and kicked out his feet. He felt something. Something move though nothing was there. His left foot, pressed up against it. He raised it slightly and offered a gentle kick. There was a rattle. Not a sound, but a feeling. A slight tremor. He bent his knee and dragged his foot through the puddle, forgetting that it was there. He was mesmerised by that rattling

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sensation. What did it mean? He sucked all the air in the room into his lungs, let it fill every cavity, and as he released it, pushed with all his might his foot against the empty space.

A crack. One at first, and then another. He couldn’t feel them, couldn’t see them or hear them. But he knew. He knew the façade would come crumbling down and ran to take cover for the shards that would surely fall.

BANG! His head collided again with one of the walls. The audience beside themselves, their laughter deafening. It filled his head and obsessed his thoughts.

Finding himself without time to spare, he dove to the left, covering his face. He laid still. Reassured of his mortality by a pounding heart, he sprung to his feet. Freedom could not wait. His eyes fierce with determination, fixed on the vast shadowland that closed in on the light, threatening to consume it. The fear had vanished. In hopeless incarceration he had confronted death and now nothing could hold him back.

He charged forward. Eyes open. Arms and Legs thrusting mechanically back and forth with frightening power. On the edge of darkness he leapt into the abyss. He flung himself into the first row of the audience and came face to face with a stunned expression, cheeks reddened, dripping with sweat. A thick moustache quivered. He brushed away a silver tuft of hair from the man’s forehead, and in its shining surface saw that damned reflection. A quick smile flashed across his face. He paraded around the motionless body, dragging his hand along the man’s beige suit. Pausing, he reached into the breast pocket, wiping his mouth with its spotted gavroche.

Disappearing into the shadow, he emerged with a sparkling blade, kissed the back of the man’s head and slid it across his throat.

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LECTURE LUIS AR AUJO

On the third of March when the first signs of spring littered the campus gardens and brought hay fever to many, Sam found himself succumbing to sleep as his advanced calculus professor diligently violated the board with equations he would later cram a week before his exam. The last time he had nodded off was five weeks ago and then he was woken by the professor and told, ‘Am I boring you Mr. Dow.’ He was so terrified he couldn’t think to reply. Since then he began sitting at the back, but dared not doze for he felt Professor Lichstein’s eyes wander towards him every time. This time he could not overcome sleep, his eyes fell lower each time, the chairs that could have been made of cement started became an embracing cloud.

His eyes kept falling, sinking further down in his chair he didn’t bother opening them again.

He dreamt a dream he had never dreamt before, so vibrant, it was like he was inside a painting, soon Sam realized he was at his bus stop, sitting down, waiting. As he looked down the street he felt that everything was alive, from the gravel on the road to the light post, to the cars, to the pavement and the swinging trees and their branches and leaves, the world was awake. He could hear each individual sound, footsteps, tires, chatter, people tapping on phones, lighting cigarettes, yelling, spitting, laughing. It was harmonious yet chaotic, and entirely beautiful, and then Sam realised he was dreaming. Sam had never had a lucid dream, although he once tried for a whole month when he was six, to see what complete power would

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feel like, and fulfill all the depravities a young six year old could think of. But it never mattered what strange things he saw from cannibalistic English teachers to a 90 on his math tests, he could never tell. ‘So this is what it’s like,’ he thought.

Before a second thought he heard a skateboard coming towards him on the path, the guy riding it was small and hat a cap, he wore a dark shirt. As he got closer he looked at Sam, and stopped just a bit before him. ‘Hey man, just wondering, has the X75 passed yet?’ Sam had never seen an X75 and he was sure that it didn’t exist, but it was a dream and so maybe it did. ‘Nah man not yet, should be here in a few minutes.’ The stranger simply gave him a thumbs up as he picked his skateboard and sat down a bit further ahead of Sam. A few seconds later the X75 had arrived. The bus was green, it had no posters, or ads advertising toothpaste, it was a bus he had never seen before, so he decided he would enter. As he entered the bus,, the guy with the skateboard turned and said, ‘Welcome.’

Sam woke, he was no longer tired, the chair became cement again, and he could hear professor Lichstein, ‘Everything in this world is a lie, everything that you see or hear or taste cannot be told it exists without any doubt because those are no more than thought, synapses and electrons making you see what you see, furthermore nothing can ever said to be known, because it relies on these senses, the only truth lies in math.’ Sam and most of the students had heard the professor’s philosophical

PHOTOGR APHY: DYL AN ROWEN

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whimsies more than once. Without any reason other than it’s what he felt he should do Sam raised his hand. With slight surprise the professor looked towards the hand and then the face of it’s beholder and said, ‘Ahh Sam, seems you finally woke up.’

A few laughs could be heard, ‘What can I help you with.’ Sam wasn’t sure and then the thought came to him and he knew. ‘Sir what happens if zero did not equal to zero?’ A few more laughed. A look of disappointment now painted the professor’s face; ‘Are you trying to be funny Sam, this is no place for jokes, or do you just want to waste my time.’ Sam was serious, ‘No sir, what if zero did not equal to zero, what would happen then?’

‘Well,’ said the professor, after a big breath. ‘If somehow zero did not equal zero, the world would explode, coffee wouldn’t exist, nobody would talk to each other, we would be ruled by ants and the moon would become the sun. ‘What if I can prove you that zero does not equal to zero.’ The class was making a weird turn that could be felt by all the students that had showed, up approximately 9. The professor was unsure whether Sam was joking. After a second or so to recover, the professor said, ‘If you can come to the board and prove to me mathematically that 0 does not equal zero, I will personally quit today and jump off the nearest bridge I can find.’ To his own surprise, ‘Okay I’ll do it,’ he replied. Sam wondered what was happening to him, since he had woken, it felt like he hadn’t left his dream, as he walked down everything was vibrant, he could hear every whisper, pen, snigger, footstep. The people in all their different colours shapes and sizes seemed to almost

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glow with a strange beauty, even for the professor. As he reached the front and walked over to the professor to grab the chalk he looked at the professor’s face and eyes at which time he remembered the skater in his dream with the black shirt, as he got the chalk he then walked over to the blackboard, his mind was blank and he couldn’t think, a 10 second pause followed where doubtful murmurs could be heard and even a snigger escaped the professor. And suddenly Sam was back on the X75, sitting down, the bus started moving and sam realized they had just left their spot, as he looked through the windows he then saw. Sam began to write on the board bringing the class to a silence as everyone looked on curiously to see how he would humiliate himself. Sam simultaneously found himself in the bus in his dream and his class. As he looked out the window of the bus he could see the equations and calculations pass him, it took all his focus to keep up and write on the board at the same, equations, grew long and all numbers came and went, after 5 minutes people were complaining saying, ‘It’ll take forever’ or ‘He’s just pretending’ but no protest

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came from the professor, and after a few more minutes he wrote one more line that was zero does not equal to zero. Sam put down the chalk and then turned around, the class was silent and everyone had understood how Sam proved it. The maths he used was not complicated. As he turned he could see each student’s face. Slowly he turned to the professor. The professor’s face was transfixed to the board, his eyes darting through each line, an involuntary ‘oh my god’ coming from his mouth, as he looked at the students then the professor each colour, each piece of sound, every molecule in the air could be heard seen and felt by Sam, then suddenly he was at the stop he normally stopped at, but this was the X75. As he left the bus he looked around. The skater wasn’t on. But as he waved bye to the driver, astonishingly the bus driver had become professor Lichstein, in fact he always was. ‘Professor what are you doing here’ Professor simply looked at him, ‘I’m no professor I’m just a bus driver.’ As Sam got off he saw the X75 leave and wonder what had just happened, and why he wasn’t in the lecture anymore.

PHOTOGR APHY: JOSH COR KE

POETRY

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COHEN’S AMERICA ALI SOULIO

Well there’s nothing quite like roaming the Rome of your day as it crumbles and burns to the beat of the soles of your feet as they drift through the vertical streets that the town falls down.

And there’s nothing quite like roaming with your lover in her turtleneck cover in the fall of all falls with her hand in your hand while the tower of man is in breach of the season as all hell breaks loose on his tower of reason for the sake of all children that wait and wait surely in the dreary gulf by the place where the Jacobean lilies once bled.

And there’s nothing quite like:

being and just bein’ with a brother in dreamin’ as he talks to ya forever in an empty old rum bar straight to your gleaming teeth.

And though he’s not quite just like you he’s just like the thought of you that’s been waitin’ to crawl out of your cheeks.

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And as your eyes and ears grow large for him you don’t leave him a breath, and he loves to go on for your gaze mends a fire in his chest that he forgot to tend to ‘cause he thought no one would care for it… but oh, how he was wrong.

And there’s nothing quite like dyin’ to live for a day when the weathered young elder speaks for more than himself on the steps of the quaint marble building that towers in stealth over the banks where he long ago had a dream that wasn’t his but surely was for him, of singing with dancing reeds now silenced and stilled among the jagged stone teeth of the city block heat.

Oh yeah, there’s nothing quite like standing over the river and staring in its mirror and knowin’ you’re here and that here is for ever and forever’s getting warmer with the flooding of borders that fall from all corners of each and everyone’s rooftops right to your screaming feet.

So the day to act bolder and reach out and hold her is drawing so nearly to its zenith and clearly it won’t wait for you to grow cold and unweary.

Don’t you grow cold now, kid.

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ABOUT FACE BENJAMIN CARR

There was a boy without a face To him, the world felt out of place He wore a mask upon his skin To hide the facelessness within

Then on a cloudless, moonlit, night So far from any prying sight He broke his mask for quick reprieve He needed fresh cold air to breathe

But in the world in which he’d live Where no one seemed to want to give He found that he felt differently His need to give was need to be

He hadn’t thought she’d seen him there Getting her own intake of air But soon she strolled up to his side And saw the face he’d tried to hide

So every time he lent a hand To someone struggling to stand His facelessness began to dim That mask became a part of him

They stood in silence as she stared She had to speak but hadn’t dared And then she saw the mask he broke The courage built and then she spoke

The people came to recognise This boy with nose and mouth and eyes Was doing everything he could To make the world around him good

‘Are you the boy that tries to help?’

She tried her hardest not to yelp ‘Yes, that’s me, the one who tried But that all failed, so now I hide’

Those people turned to him and smiled But couldn’t help but see a child They only saw him for his skin He still felt faceless from within

She didn’t know what she could say She hadn’t known another way She kissed him there, right on the spot Where his face was, but now was not

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His skin went red, not just from cold If he’d had lips, she’d taste like gold His mask now broken, she could see His face within wanted to be His features faded into view Her eyes were closed but still she knew She felt his face against her own She felt his skin as cold as stone As she leant back, she saw him whole His eyes blinked once, a glance he stole A smile now broke upon his skin Nothing could stop that childish grin They went their separate ways that night He woke before the morning light Glad he’d found that night’s fresh air He wondered still why she was there And so he went back to the place Where she had given him a face

He found the spot she’d been before And found her sitting on the floor She didn’t move, so he sat down Her teary eyes turned grin to frown Her shiver shook him to the bone Now she was cold as stone After a time, she chose to speak But still the tears fell down her cheek She told him of a man who’d died Her father who’d stood by her side Eventually she met his eyes She saw something he couldn’t size And then at once he understood She hugged him as a daughter would The face she’d left upon his skin Was all her love from deep within Her father’s features as a boy Had brought to her a bitter joy

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AN ALPHABET OF PAST HURT DYL AN ROWEN

Armour our Bleeding hearts with Careful civility.

Disquiet runs strife, Endlessly laughing For the next day to come.

Graciously accept the Hangover from last night, but Inside our bodies there Juggles a clock.

Kept at bay though Languor and warmer days, while Men have tried to alphabetise & Neuter our hearts Over scorched fields and Prayers, but I don’t want Quid Pro Quo, Rather I’m simply happy to be Someone with you.

Taken from years of Unhappy ticks, our Very clocks seem to beat When we are together.

Except, when the Year dances as fast as the Zither, I play a new melody.

PHOTOGR APHY: DYL AN ROWEN

PHOTOGR APHY: JOSH COR KE

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FALLING ELISHA MCGR ATH

I fell in more ways than one And in more ways than one You pushed me Your words tore at me until I grew smaller In more ways than one You said you liked the bones that protruded My open wounds for you I sat in silence as your anger grew You denied every single bruise Told me I was everything Until I was only good for one thing Until you found me disgusting Until you decided my pain meant nothing I fell in more ways than one And in more ways than one You pushed me

PHOTOGR APHY: R ACH EL WONG

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