Starflowers

I woke up in an utter stillness.

I didn’t know then that we were surrounded. Not that it made much of a difference, the fact of my ignorance or their presence.

Clambering out of the tent, my eyelids soaked in sleep, I didn’t notice anything especially unusual at first. My insistent bladder claimed all my grimy attention. That and stuffing my feet into nasty-critter free shoes.

It was only when I finished the sloppy knots on my boots that I really noticed the quiet. For a moment, I sank into it, like a stone in water. So different from my usual city nights. Even the yips of dingoes were absent, enlarging the span of the star-soaked sky overhead. Just me and the wind, rippling through the low-growing scrub.

Then I yawned and my too-full bladder diverted me. I filed the quiet away to this being the Outback and nothing more.

Insane as that sounds now.

With bleary eyes, I stumbled along, scanning the red ground for spiders and snakes. Listening for the scratch-rattle of paws on the fringes of the tents. Dependent on the ropes of solar-powered bulbs strung overhead like fresh teeth.

Hoping I wouldn’t scream if a Huntsman spider stalked out of the dark. Hoping someone would hear me if it was worse.

Just in case, for luck, I stomped out each footstep. Raising red puffs and staining my boots and bedraggled trousers a deeper ochre.

I don’t know why that didn’t wake them. Or anyone else.

Especially with my cursing of that last can of beer. Only half-drunk too. But it didn’t.

Each of the minibuses were parked in a neat row at one end of the campsite, close to the toilets and the shower block. All encased in a yellow-grey cinderblock structure.

Not where I would have settled.

I thought later that maybe it was the water. The drinking tap was located on the other side of the buses.

All the pipes buried beside the access roads and running along behind the toilets.

When I was sure I was reasonably safe, I raised my head, cutting through the buses to the cinder block building behind. Jogging now, bladder too full and utterly awake.

The glow registered on my periphery, but I instantly dismissed it. Before memory pulled my brain into motion and shortened my steps not six feet from the toilets.

This was the Outback: there was no urban glow.

Curious, I pivoted towards a gap in the fence and shuffled closer to see.

They lay on the rough tarmacadam road like a lavender blanket. Sixlimbed, I thought. Small enough that I could have held the largest between the crook of my arm and my wrist, with room to spare. And I’m a small woman.

It was enticing fur. The tip silverish and deepening down into a late sunset purple.

They all seemed to be asleep. Snuggled together in little groups. The odd one lying on its own but close enough to reach out and touch its fellows.

A yearning to pick one up and smooth its fur under my fingers settled somewhere under my ribs. To cradle it as I would cradle one of my cats.

I murdered that impulse before my hand drifted too far from my chest and my feet carried me any closer.

Took the same axe to the next two thoughts: pull out my depleted phone or go rouse someone else.

The aliens could be a mirage. A projection. Feral. Peaceful.

If I disturbed them the consequences were incalculable.

But whatever I chose, I was not going to die pissing myself.

by Jennifer Flynn

top: Liv-Andrea Banner Fregatten bottom: Liv-Andrea Banner Erinyes

As I was shooting pictures at a party, I dropped my prism lens. It broke but I kept shooting. When I developed the photos, I was shocked to see that broken things could also capture beauty. Just a di erent kind of beauty.

farting tuba thunderous polka beat cooling my warmth for my otherwise lovely neighbours if only they wouldn’t shoot guns in the air at midnight

by Sharon Keely

Yardie, wha’ gwaan’ mon. Me iguana, everyting’ cris, ‘cept for d’coconut me get d’blame mon! Over d’brown dog... me just chillin’, everyting’ irie mon, chillin’ in me yard when come runnin’ d’chicken me bein’ frame mon! Was d’human ya mon, me frame. Psst… me seek redemption.

Ya mon, me seek redemption. Me frame for crime me no commit mon, over poison coconut me was just chillin mon, was d’human Psst… chill mon, me no poison no dog for chasin’ foofool chicken me was just sleepin’ in me yard...

Ya mon, me was just chillin’ when d’dog mash up me yard... Psst… redemption me pay no mind to no chicken d’brown dog mash up me yard mon, over chasin’ d’goddamn coconut d’white dog always lookin’ for food mon, d’fat belly white dog t’was d’human mon, they spray d’poison —me get frame mon, by d’human

Me didn’t shoot d’sheriff mon. Psst… me gwann’ tell them, was d’human everyting’ was irie mon, me was just chillin’ in d’yard when d’brown dog come n’mash up me bredren, and then roll up in d’dead, sick dog sick in da head mon. Me need redemption. d’sun, for d’bones mon. Me have no business with any coconut d’human only like d’chicken from KFC mon, they kill d’dog instead of d’chicken

D’human mon, d’get all vex, when d’dogs bust up d’yard chasin’ d’goddamn chicken me d’scapegoat mon, psst… for d’goddamn human Ya mon, me wasn’t d’one to throw d’coconut if me had d’chance, d’brown dog he be catchin’ d’coconut from me yard, in d’sea mon, those sharks have a field day mon… redemption. Me cool n’ all mon, but wha’ gwaan’ with d’crazy big dog...

Incomin’, me so sick n’tired of hearin’ that out of d’big dog he so sick mon, he think me some sort of poet over talkin’ about some KFC chicken me no talk no poetry mon, me just want redemption listen mon, soon come. D’grey dog, he got his, by d’human me just stay here ’till d’time come, and me just chill in me yard ‘till d’brown dog, he eat d’poison coconut.

D’brother Bob sang d’song of redemption: Emancipate yourself from foofool dogs, None but ‘incoming’ can free d’coconut... Have no fear for d’atomic chicken, Cause none of them wanna stop d’human... Me just want d’freedom, in me yard...

by Sarah O’Keeffe