Within Without: an anthology of creative writing from the University of the Sunshine Coast 2015

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an anthology of creative writing from anthology of creative writing from the university theanof the university sunshine coastof the sunshine coast

2015

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Foreword Dr Ross Watkins (Lecturer in Creative Writing) Ms Melanie Myers (Sessional academic) University of the Sunshine Coast

A little on the page, a little off the page. A little within, yet a little without...

When Nick Carraway says something very similar in The Great Gatsby (which we could not include for copyright reasons, ahem) he’s talking about life’s infinite variety, and his simultaneous feelings of enchantment and repulsion at it all. Nick is both insider and outsider; participant and observer; accomplice and witness. And so it is for not only life but also its telling—you and I are in on the story, yet forever outside it.

It took three months to put this book together, yet what is within is not an accurate reflection of what is without—good writing always appears effortless.

And if you want narrative, then we’ve got it here—14 short stories, 15 microfictions, and a scattering of other writing experiments.

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The microfictions are perhaps the most obvious feature ‘within’. They make their mark not only with their unique design aesthetic, but also their brevity; their ability to distill into story the smallest emotional shifts, concerns and interactions we all recognise in the day to day.

To the production managers, manuscript editors, proofers, designers, desktop publishers, in-house and solicited writers, we commend you for this determined and remarkable publication.

October 2015

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Editorial Collective Š 2015 Within Without Editorial Collective University of the Sunshine Coast Within Without is published by an Editorial Collective comprised of the following students and staff from the University of the Sunshine Coast, October 2015: Amy Bailey, Ali Bergeron, Fril E. Destare, Travis Dever, Michaela Groom, Cody Harold, Sharni Hastings, Michael Higgins, Alexandra Hodgson, Tahlia Kertesz, Dylan Kimmedy, Sasha King, Jessica McKay, Alannah Mewes, Dustin Millers, Linda Morse, David Peall, Adriel Ross, Rachel Sawyer, Jordan Smith, Hannah Trost, Madeline Upton, Carly Weber, Melanie Myers and Ross Watkins.

Copyright on individual contributions remain with the authors. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part of this publication may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Enquiries should be addressed to: Dr Ross Watkins Lecturer in Creative Writing School of Communication and Creative Industries 4

Faculty of Arts and Business University of the Sunshine Coast Queensland, Australia rwatkins@usc.edu.au Within Without: an anthology of creative writing from the University of the Sunshine Coast 2015 Cover design by Sasha King © 2015 Cover graphics by Sasha King, Carly Weber and Ross Watkins © 2015 Internal graphics by Fril E. Destare, Cody Harold, Sasha King, Carly Weber and Ross Watkins © 2015 Page design and layout by Cody Harold, Sasha King and Carly Weber © 2015 ‘The Swing’ illustration by Mark Gerrett © 2015 ‘Strawberry Thief ’ graphics by Carly Weber, Linda Gooch and Cody Harold © 2015 Intro by Amy Bailey and Jessica McKay © 2015 Outro by Jessica McKay © 2015 Blurb by Linda Morse and David Peall © 2015 5

Short Story Snippets Solitary Light – Bianca Millroy “We all inherit traits, some we deny. We embody the ghosts of our family.”

‘Solitary Light’ is a dance between lyrics and prose, drawing from the song Little Talks to enrich a tale of family, loss, and acceptance in the life of a lighthouse keeper’s daughter.

The Flying Tailor – Dayne Patrick Grant “It seemed evident to everyone that height was my issue; I simply needed to jump from higher.”

In this piece of historical fiction, Dayne Patrick Grant gives voice to the story of Franz Reichelt, a French tailor turned inventor, and how he made his mark on the world.

The Strawberry Thief – Linda Gooch “In those recent moments of profound anguish, Jack has held himself together. Just.”

Our inaugural illustrated book, ‘The Strawberry Thief ’ explores the destructive nature of grief and misplaced blame.

Reaching – Amy de Wet “The waves never stopped trying, constantly reaching no matter how many times they were refused.”

Full of beautiful imagery, ‘Reaching’ is a tense, disillusioned look at the false promise of safety for migrants in Australia.

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Wilson and Me – Jodie Morrison “I said to myself, what a hand this kid has been dealt. What a waste.”

A touching story of friendship and mortality, ‘Wilson and Me’ is simultaneously a tale of hope and an ode to those who never had enough time.

Sister – Hannah Forsdike “I knew the day we buried my parents that Liv and I had to stay together. Whether I was ‘capable’ or not.”

In ‘Sister’, familial bonds are tested as a young woman struggles to maintain custody of her younger sister after the loss of their parents.

The Swing – Margaret Joyce (a.k.a. Mark Gerrett) “The swing wants me here. It hints, whispers, commands me to remember. And I do.”

Swaying between memory and urgency, ‘The Swing’ follows the dark descent of a woman driven to the edge, unable to escape the past that clings to her.

The Waiting Room – Jade Mitchell “A small, empty, white, room. You lick your lips and swallow. Take a deep breath. Hold it.

And release. Good.”

Being alone with your own thoughts in a hospital can be one of the most nerve-wracking experiences imaginable. Jade Mitchell’s ‘The Waiting Room’ taps into this sense of anxiety, bringing every second to a crawl, while refusing to let you go.

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Intro Word /wɜd/ noun – A sound or a combination of sounds, or its written or printed representation, used in any language as the sign of a concept.

As writers we often spend our time searching for the right words. Before this anthology was crowned Within Without, we all claimed different words that would be our titles—Editor, Production Manager, Writer, Proofer, Designer, Desktop Publisher—and we undertook the task to bring this publication into being. Yet, still we were searching for the right words. Editors and Proofers deciding on how to best spell ‘fence post’ or whether ‘no-one’ should be hyphenated. Writers churning out in-house submissions, putting words in and cutting them out. Designers creating images to express unsaid words and concepts. All the while, the Production Managers were finding the right words of encouragement and ensuring diplomacy to keep us on task.

But ultimately, we were trying to find one word in particular, a word to define us: Collective /kəˈlɛktɪv/ noun – 1. A collective body; aggregate. 2. A communal enterprise or system, working towards the common good or a goal, as opposed to one admitting competition between individuals.

As this year found the Editorial Collective spilt into two classes, finding a collective identity was a challenge. Meetings were organised, social media pages created and slowly, twenty-three students found their feet, and with them 8

we found these words: Within Without.

The collection of short stories, micro-fiction and an illustrated book living within these pages explores the layers of the human condition. This is Within Without.

Within /wɪðˈɪn/ adverb – 1. On, or as regards, the inside, or internally. 2. In the mind, heart, or soul; inwardly.

Without /wɪðˈaʊt/ adverb – 1. As regards the outside, or externally. 2. As regards external acts, or outwardly.

In this collection of stories, words within the text come to life off the page and evoke many meanings. Words like family, jealousy, anxiety, death, the unknown, loneliness, trust, aging, guidance, grief and acceptance. These are the words that connect us. As human beings we make connections with ourselves, each other and with words. When we exist without words, we cannot exist within ourselves.

Within Without is an anthology of words. On the outside, without anything else, the words are only colours of light on a screen or black ink on paper— just marks. Yet these marks have the ability to do so much more. Within these words are worlds, people and truth. The Collective invites you to read. Read and absorb the marks on the skin of each page and enter deep down, through the layers of us all.

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BIANCA MILLROY

Solitary Light In the very beginning, there was a light.

Even on the darkest of nights, it could still be found where all hope had been lost. To those of Mainland, it was simply a tower and a beacon. To the wary sailor of yesteryear however, it was a glimmering monument to all that had triumphed over the sea to safely reach the shore.

I stand at the wharf wrapped in the lace scarf my mother gave me before she died. My gaze tracks east along the horizon until I see the island in the distance. A crouching lion, the island lies in wait with waves breaking at its hindquarters. I search for the Casa di Luce, carving a path of light through the gloom. It is a foreign land now, but many years ago a girl would have stared at me from across the strait. My vision blurs from the sting of salt.

Listen. I can hear you when I place a conch shell up to my ear. Can you keep a secret? Soon the tides will turn and bury the past once more.

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I need to know the truth.

I am Urchin; a name I was given beneath a full moon on Shelly Beach

one August. Urchin, because of the creatures that invaded the rock pools of my play area. Urchin, because of the way I was raised to protect myself.

Danger had a presence everywhere, yet I came to realise that both beauty and danger co-exist, even beyond the island.

Young and free, we would play outside, full of hopes and dreams.

On days where the sun stared down on the tussock, an Irish fisherman would bring his son, Byron, for a day of fishing on the bommies. I would cart my sketch book and charcoal around, naming each ribbon of rock and sand. Although the fishermen rarely came to shore, my father would signal for supplies, which were launched by a wicker basket to a boat bobbing fifty metres below the treacherous cliffs.

As I lowered the basket, Byron would call out to me, ‘Don’t go yet, just wait for me.’

I would coyly reply, ‘I must go, but we’ll meet again in our dreams.’

When I was just a little Urchin, the island was our continent. I was the 12

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pioneer of no-man’s land; circumnavigating the Casa di Luce until I could count the exact number of steps home. My father was Henry the Signal Master and my mother was Syrenuse the First Lady; or sometimes just the wash mistress. It was my father’s duty to keep the light burning, even on the bleakest of nights. Casa di Luce was a phrase from our homeland. It meant House of Light in Italian. Traditionally, home and family were bound together; a reminder to keep a piece of Luce inside all of us.

Before I left for Mainland, my father was the only compass I had.

Taking my hand, he would point it to the west, looking for the first star on the horizon. During the day, signal flags would be strung like bunting from the astragals, or storm panes, a visual messenger more reliable than carrier pigeon. At dusk we would journey up the eighty-five cobblestone steps to the gallery of the Casa di Luce, the lookout, my father called it. Through a careful process of measuring whale oil and trimming wicks he would create a luminous crystal; hundreds of convex lenses all bending and refracting as one.

Although the methods of light had changed over time, the purpose had not. From a cradle of fire in Abyssinian times to a flame fueled by kerosene and, finally, to a moat of lethal mercury housing a generator and

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a two-hundred and fifty millimetre revolving lamp. Our light—a Fourth Order Candescent Fresnel lamp—had been constructed in 1896, following the invention of the Fresnel lens in 1822. The three dimensional optical jigsaw, as my father described it, would emit two brilliant flashes every ten seconds. This was a signature which distinguished South Solitary from other beacons in the archipelago. The Casa di Luce could reach out to any ships in a twenty-mile radius of the island.

Once the last star faded into a new day, I would follow my father back to extinguish the light. Though the truth may differ, my father told me that the light would guide lost ships safe to shore. I believed him, until one day, when there was no light to guide the ships.

It was raining the morning of my tenth birthday. I remember waking to the pitter-patter on my windowpane and turning over to find a note on my pillow.

Follow the light, my Urchin, for soon you will see, an instrument to guide you

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and a device to ground you, a gift to you from me.

- Your loving parents.

I set off for the light, my heart echoing the sound of each footstep. Thud, thud. As soon as I had climbed the spiral stairs, I knew something was wrong.

Pitter-patter. Father was not at his post and the logbook was opened to a new page. His hand had scrawled only the date. My father was never one to work in haste; something had forced him away from his duty.

A brown paper parcel sat on his desk. I untied the string and gingerly held up the sea-green scarf with two weighted pendants. A compass and an anchor twirled at each end, reflecting a spectrum of colours upon the revolving prism.

There was a blur of movement on the ground below. From the lookout, I recognised my father’s silhouette, his hand raised to his forehead. What was he searching for?

Then I saw her; grasping a bottle and the hem of her nightgown, standing before the tempest. I clutched the railing and tried to cry out, but an old voice in my head held me back.

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‘Watch yourself, little Urchin, don’t wander too far. Mamma’s right behind you.’

Father could barely reach out to pull her back before she plunged into the depths.

Despite the fading light, the scene is still etched into the cartography of my mind. Each day I climbed those spiral stairs I was reminded of her; the circular blue-grey of her eyes, closing into a black hole of oblivion and the way she would writhe in her sleep. She gradually turned to stone, becoming more rigid each day she sat in her chair by the window, gazing at the Casa di Luce with fearful animosity.

Father tried to convince me it was an accident.

‘Those cliffs are a death trap, Urchin. Your mother should have known better.’

The island and its solitary life had compressed and swallowed her; another shipwreck on Solitary, her mast splintered and sails tattered.

‘I’ll walk by your side. Take my hand, here.’

There was no hope that the light could repel.

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BIANCA MILLROY

‘It’s all in your mind, an illusion, my dear.’

There’s something that remains; a ghost in a shell.

‘I watched you go, but did you disappear?’

‘Black wind, it’s a Black wind for sure!’ the voice echoes around me. I look up to see a boat looming ahead and, on the bow, a man securing a rope to the dock.

‘A Black wind?’ I enquire.

‘Named after Admiral Drake Black. He came to rescue a Lady of the Light from a distress call in the midst of a storm.’

His voice is clearer now and a faint accent takes me by surprise.

‘Name’s Capt’n Fleet, of the S.S. Karawatha.’ He extends his hand and tips his sailor’s hat. ‘You are in capable hands I assure you. A long line of Fleets before aye, mariners and merchants. How do you do, Miss …?’

‘Dammerel.’

‘A Dammerel aye? Well I’ll be!’

‘Well, thank you,’ I continue, ‘however, my visit is not in the best of

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circumstances.’

‘None of them usually are, not on Solitary. The island knows when it has visitors and only those brave enough will dare venture near.’

The barge dips recklessly in the swell as I climb onto the deck. Pellets of rain sting my cheeks, making a trail down my raincoat. The cabin smells of stale cigars and seaweed.

‘You see,’ I begin, ‘my father is gravely ill. I have come to care for him and help with the formalities when the time comes. He is barely sixty but the isolation has taken its toll. I just hope he recognises me. After the incident, my father became somewhat of a recluse.’

‘He has not changed since,’ replies the captain gruffly.

‘No,’ I agree, ‘but I am not here to change the past. I am here to create a future for myself on South Solitary.’

‘You will live on the island?’

‘Yes, I see no problem with continuing my father’s work. It is not as if I will be missing the company. I have lived long enough on Mainland.’

‘It is different on an island,’ he muses, ‘as any lighthouse keeper can imagine. But I am only a fisherman, what would I know?’

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BIANCA MILLROY

‘Well, you seem to know a lot actually. I never expected someone to know so much about my father off the island.’

‘Ah, but I am simply repeating the words of my father and his father before him. The sons of Fleet seem to have a weakness for the Ladies of the Light. When you are on the island there is something you must understand.’

‘Understand what exactly?’

‘How quick the winds can change. It was only a few years ago I was caught in an earthquake off the coast of South America. My boat was reported missing for over a month, no radio or flares on board to signal my distress. It was out there that I finally discovered the truth. Age does not define you; only experience can mark a man with the wisdom beyond his years. Sometimes when you have no escape, the impossible becomes probable. Feelings become mixed between what is reality and what is not. Suddenly, life is nothing but a shifting between light and dark.’

‘I am not my mother.’

‘Nor am I my father. But we all carry the past on our shoulders. That is, as far as Darwin’s theory goes, the Origin of Species; we all inherit traits, some we deny. We embody the ghosts of our family.’

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‘Okay Darwin, so tell me this. Who do I take after? My father, who retreated into his shell, a shadow of his former self; or my mother, diving off a cliff free as a bird and falling like a star?’

The captain locks his gaze on mine. ‘You have your mother’s eyes, and her fiery passion; a one-track mind often mistaken for madness. Your father gave you his wisdom, his intellect and that endearing ability to ignore the voice of reason.’

‘Madness?’ I ask, feeling hairs bristling on my neck.

‘Is that all you can say?’ he chuckles.

‘Madness is exactly what I saw in my mother’s eyes. It never went away, even when she told me she was right again; right with herself, but never in the eyes of my father. He flew into a jealous rage, accusing her of being loved by another man. A sailor.’

‘You heard this?’ he enquires, gently averting his eyes.

‘I was there; yes, I saw it. I saw it all.’

‘How old were you?’ The captain steps closer and I see, despite his rough stubble, his eyes are blue, youthful; he couldn’t be much older than me.

‘I am not sure when it started. I was too young to understand—but 20

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old enough to know it wasn’t right. I blamed myself for what happened the morning of my tenth birthday.’

The captain’s tone lowers. ‘You deserved better.’

‘I deserved a childhood,’ I press on, ‘instead I was forced to become an adult before my years. I left the island never knowing the truth. Now I have returned to find it.’

‘Ah, my, how quick the winds can change.’ The captain nods to the squall of wind and rain approaching the portals.

‘I assure you, Miss Dammerel, your father will remember you. The Dammerel family has served on Solitary for over four generations now; an admirable feat. As men of the sea and the light, we tend to dwell on the past. A gift as much as a curse, sometimes I barely know what is going on around me, hence the rather lackluster introduction.’

‘Lacklustre?’ I raise my eyebrows.

‘Forgive me; it seems after all these years as a lone sailor, I have lost my touch. Clearly, I have spent too long chasing a dream across the sea. I knew that one day you would return to find the truth about your mother.’

‘My mother passed over ten years ago. What do you know of her? From

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what I was told, my father and I were the only company she kept.’

‘Perhaps, Miss Dammerel, but do you remember a fisherman and his son coming to the island? The boy—he hoped for the friendship to become something more, but your father was protective. After your mother disappeared, he forbade visitors to the island.’

‘Now you mention, I do remember. I thought perhaps I was dreaming all these years.’

‘I can help you,’ he offers.

‘How?’ ‘I know the truth, Urchin.’

‘How do you know my name?’

‘I am the boy, the one from your dreams. I am Byron.’

Standing on the bow, I am reminded of Darwin about to set foot on Galapagos, except the island will be inhabited by more than just flora and fauna. I will soon take over my father’s place; to become the next Lighthouse Keeper.

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BIANCA MILLROY

I can just make out the Grecian white cylinder, rising twenty meters above the watermark. The beacon is already aglow in the afternoon.

Tendrils of mist hang above the surface of the water, obscuring the view of the dock. The light, my light, guides the barge to where there is a break in the cliffs. The foghorn alerts the island of our arrival. It has been ten years since anyone has stepped on, or off, South Solitary. Now, at the age of twenty, I was coming home. Byron lowers the bridge to create a makeshift landing.

‘This is where I leave you, Urchin. Your father will meet you once you have reached the Keeper’s cottage. I will return when you give the signal and his time has come. There is no way off the island until then. I wish you well.’

The boat leaves for Mainland, yet Byron’s touch still lingers like the warmth of the light. I gather my belongings and step onto the shore of where I grew up.

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DAYNE GRANT

The Flying Tailor As I stand here, fifteen and a half stories high in the bitter cold wind, I feel nervous for the first time. The temperature has fallen to minus seven degrees. The concern and fear in the voices of those nervously waiting below is still fresh in my mind. I wonder if all these people are right. Perhaps the cold weather will stop the canopy from deploying correctly. Perhaps my calculations are off. I question myself for the first time in the two years I have spent designing, testing and modifying my suit. Perhaps I am not high enough; a test from the second platform seems like a better idea right now, but it is far too late. I am here with witnesses and cameras, and I intend to make my mark on the world. After forty seconds of indecision, I convince myself that it will succeed. I have tailored this suit using my own hands, my own calculations, and it is going to work!

Extending my arms to form a cross with my body, I leap off the guardrail.

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People have since wondered why I did this. I simply got tired of all the low-altitude accidents resulting in death upon impact. I realised that something had to be done. My mind wandered back to the great inventors of the past—the men and women who wanted to make a difference in this world—people such as Louis-Sébastien Lenormand. Monsieur Lenormand was the first man to make a controlled descent from the tower of the Montpellier Observatory on the twenty-sixth of December 1783 and define the word ‘parachute’.

The inspiration for my contraption came in the summer of 1910. I was watching my good friend Alphonse Babineaux’s two daughters playing in the fields at his dairy farm. His eldest child was chasing her younger sibling with two corners of a bed sheet tied to her ankles and the other two corners held in her outstretched hands. She struck me as adventurous and divine, like an angel descending from the heavens. As she chased after her sister I noticed her speed increase when she drew her arms tight to her body and then decrease as she spread them apart; I realised after a time that it must be the drag caused by the surface area of the bed sheet. From here, an idea was born.

I then hastened back to my apartment, sat down at my dusty and worn corner table and commenced drawing my designs. I did not want to chance 26

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losing this idea. I had a quaint little apartment that doubled as my tailoring shop tucked neatly behind the old barber shop on Rue Gaillon. I had opened this business when I first moved to Paris from Vienna in 1898 and mostly made suits for the Austrian tourists. With the Best Western Gaillon Opera only just down the road, the street always bustled with activity and kept my business steady.

All of the parachutes that existed in my time were rigid, fixed canopy designs which were incapable of compacting down, therefore rendering them impractical inside the tight confines of a cockpit. To me the most important factors of my suit were that it must be comfortable, not impeding the wearer’s movements in any way, light enough to be worn for several hours at a time and most importantly, work in any low-altitude situation within a moment’s notice. I decided to start with a basic overcoat design and adapt that into what I named my ‘parachute de maillot’. I began by enlarging the back of the overcoat with six square metres of canvas, then used thick rubber threads at thirty centimetre intervals running from the canvas to a two-belt harness. This would be strapped onto the chest, keeping the wearer securely attached to the canopy. It also had two metal rods that unfolded from the shoulders to extend above the head, keeping the face free from obstruction and maximising the

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surface area of the parachute.

After a week of cutting and sewing, my first prototype was ready. I went to the roof of my apartment building to test it for efficiency. My building was only five stories tall, but I believed that would be sufficient to give me a good impression of whether my invention was to work or not. At the time I was a little concerned about the weight, being around forty kilograms. I strapped a sack of sand into my invention and pushed it off the roof. The canvas unfurled perfectly, and the sack landed softly on the street below. After four more successful tests, the sack remained undamaged, convincing me that with a little improvement, my idea would soon become a reality!

The next day, I took my prototype to the aeronautical organisation, La Ligue Aerienne at the Aero-Club de France. I had hoped that they would retest it and award me funding for further improvements, eventually leading to mass production on a grand scale. Everyone had laughed in my face and believed my experiments to be careless and unscientific, with no actual chance of success. The co-founder, Ernest Archdeacon even told me that I should stop wasting time and enjoy the simple life of a tailor. This however, only strengthened my resolve and I returned home with a renewed determination 28

DAYNE GRANT

to make my creation lighter, stronger, easier to use and more impressive than ever before. I walked out assured that I would be having the last laugh; Ernest Archdeacon could eat his words.

With their comments lingering in my mind, I decided to make a life-size dummy with roughly the same weight and height as myself out of old sacks and sand, rendering my tests more realistic and narrowing the margin for error. Then I moved forward with fresh determination to redesign my suit.

My first attempt to improve my ‘parachute de maillot’ ended in complete failure.

I had broadened the size of the canopy to twelve square metres and reduced the weight to twenty-five kilograms by simply using silk instead of canvas; however, this design had the dummy landing with a very audible thud from the fifth floor, which brought me to the conclusion that it was falling a little too swiftly for a safe landing. I calculated that it still needed more surface area and a reduction of weight by about fifty percent for it to work as I hoped.

After a full year of altering and testing my ‘parachute de maillot’, I had at last produced the final design. This one had a thirty square metre silk canopy, and I had managed to reduce the weight down to nine kilograms by using a thinner, stronger type of silk and more delicate rubber threads. I also replaced

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the metal rods with much lighter bamboo ones. This design was only a little more voluminous than ordinary clothing and did not restrict the user’s movements in any way. It was also quite comfortable when folded into suitform, somewhat like a silk cloak with a large hood. I had designed it to be easily deployed by extending the arms out to the sides to form a cross with the body. Doing this would unravel the parachute, starting with the bottom half falling down and opening out, followed by the upper section unfolding from the centre out towards the arms. After three successful dummy drops from the roof, I decided I would take the ultimate plunge and test this version myself.

The next day, I invited my two closest friends, Alphonse and Hugues Delacroix to witness the personal test of my invention. As we climbed to the roof I revealed that I was going to use myself in this experiment. Hugues asked if I was going to use any safety ropes or équipement protecteur, to which I replied with a quick, sharp, ‘Non.’ I wanted to try the experiment myself and without trickery; I was determined to prove the worth of my apparatus. As we reached the roof, my friends were both quite concerned. After a few minutes of arguing, they convinced me to place some old mattresses on the street where I intended to 30

DAYNE GRANT

land. Alphonse happily went down to the street to set them up, while Hugues helped me to manoeuvre into the suit. After Alphonse had finished, he called up to tell me that the safety measures were complete and everything was ready for my descent. I walked to the edge of the roof, extended my arms and fell forward. The bottom of my suit opened as intended and the silk began to unravel; but not quickly enough. I hit the ground with much more force than intended, which broke my right leg and severely bruised my ego.

My dream however, was not broken.

After Alphonse and Hugues had taken me to get my leg set at the nearest h么pital we started talking about why my experiment had failed. It was clear that in some sense it had worked; I was not dead. But something had definitely gone wrong, as my descent had been much too quick. From where Alphonse stood on the street he believed it was quite obvious that my canopy had not fully expanded. Hugues agreed with him, saying that if I had a couple more seconds, my parachute would have fully unfolded and the experiment perhaps would have worked. It seemed evident from both opinions that height was my concern; I simply needed to jump from a greater height.

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This gave me an idea, and I resolved to attempt the use of my suit again

as soon as my leg was fully mended and strong again.

Two months later, I forwarded an official request to the préfet de police, Louis Jean-Baptiste Lépine. I knew that the police force routinely gave permission for experiments to be conducted on the Eiffel Tower, so I appealed to him for the allowance of a test descent from the first platform. I knew that the first platform was fifteen and a half stories high and believed that would give me ample time for my parachute to fully deploy. A few weeks later I received a reply, a letter along with signed authorisation papers.

The answer was a resounding, ‘oui.’

Monsieur Lépine wrote that he was very enthusiastic about my idea and even asked if he could accompany me up to the platform on the day. Through correspondence, I agreed and we set a date and time. My test drop was to be conducted on the morning of the fourth of February 1912. A day I hoped would change my life forever.

It was intensely cold that morning. The thermoscope registered zero degrees

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as I woke with excitement and trepidation. Instantly wide awake, I shakily strapped myself into my ‘parachute de maillot’; I do not know whether I was shaking from the chill in the air or the excitement that coursed through my veins. Perhaps it was a bit of both. Today was the day; triumph or failure, it all emanated from this one test. I travelled with my friends Hugues and Alphonse and arrived at the Eiffel Tower at seven o’clock, the crisp morning air livening our steps. We were greeted by Monsieur Lépine at the base of the tower. He was quite shocked to find me wearing my suit, and asked where my test dummy was. I told him that the dummy was waiting in a safe place, and explained that I was just modelling my invention for the journalists who had insisted on taking photos of my apparatus in both its suit-form and parachute-form. This act made me feel magnificent, like I was finally getting the recognition I deserved for all the years of dedication and work I had invested in this project.

After the press had taken their photos and asked their questions, I began to make my way towards the staircase to ascend to the first platform, leaving Monsieur Lépine behind to speak to the spectators and the press. Hugues walked up to me and asked if I would like him to carry the test dummy up to the first platform. I decided this was the time to reveal my plan, so I replied

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that I was not going to be using a dummy for this drop. I wanted to jump.

Within my heart I knew that my suit would work, and work better than anyone’s wildest dreams! As I had expected, Hugues tried to discourage me using every excuse that could be named. He urged me, ‘mon ami, il fait trop froid,’ ‘my friend, it’s too cold,’ ‘the wind is too strong,’ and ‘you should at least try it with the dummy first.’ But everything he said dissipated in the air between us. He quickly realised that he was not going to make me change my mind, and ran off to get the préfet de police hoping that perhaps he could convince me to abandon my idea.

Monsieur Lépine then came running from the crowd, yelling, ‘TU NE PEUX PAS FAIRE ÇA!’ ‘YOU CANNOT DO THAT! YOU MUST BE A CRACKPOT!’ He had been under the impression that my test drop was to be done using a dummy, a natural assumption on his part.

All Eiffel Tower tests in the past had been conducted using human analogues, and I had deliberately hid my desire to use myself in this experiment from everyone I knew as to not incur much hindrance. I explained to Monsieur Lépine that my official request never stated that a dummy would be used, and that he had already signed the authorisation papers for the experiment. I told him in no uncertain terms that I was going to do this

34

DAYNE GRANT

myself; that I believed in my invention. Monsieur Lépine made clear that while I had not yet broken the law, he deeply disagreed with my decision. He explained that if I continued with my experiment he would have to arrest me as soon as I hit the ground. At this point I did not care what anyone had to say; I was here. I was going to show the world what my invention was worth. I turned silently and walked toward the staircase behind Monsieur Lépine. His eyes followed me, with a stain of disapproval and disappointment. As I passed by him, I heard him mutter, ‘mais… quoi si votre calculs sont faux?’ ‘But... what if your calculations are wrong?’

When I reached the first platform Alphonse and Hugues were already waiting for me, along with a cinematographer who was going to capture my historical feat on film. My friends attempted one final time to discourage me, but immediately realised they were fighting a lost battle. In the end, they gave up and agreed to help me by setting up a makeshift ladder; a stool on a small table so I could easily step out onto the guardrail. I thanked them for their concern and friendship and promised to reward them with some top-shelf liquor that night in celebration of my victory. I stood up onto the table, then onto the stool and put one foot on the guardrail.

As I leapt, I immediately knew that it would not succeed. Regret

THE FLYING TAILOR

35

swam through my mind as I plummeted towards the hard, frozen ground.

I could feel the silk slowly unravelling around me, and it was clear that it was not going to fully deploy in time. I did not scream. I just fell silently, embarrassment and shame coursing through my being. My calculations were off; I should have tried the dummy first. Everyone had been right.

After a five second free fall, I slammed into the ground leaving a fifteen centimetre dent in the earth.

Mon nom a été Franz Reichelt et je l›avais finalement fait ma marque sur le monde.

My name was Franz Reichelt and I had finally made my mark on the world.

36

DAYNE GRANT

THE FLYING TAILOR

37

Peggy Jones JESSICA MCKAY

38

‘Charlie is that you?’

‘Yes love, it is me.’

My name is Charles Walter Jones. I have a wife, Margaret Grace Jones, and two children. Edward is five and Myrtle is one. They are the reason I volunteered. The front line was not as glamorous as I heard it ought to be. The days in the trenches are long. There is mud up October 27th 1914

to our ankles, and the nights are just as long, as well as freezing cold.

The chaps are a friendly lot and were keen to talk about what was happening before I left home. The food is terrible but the chaps say that they are happy for any food. They said that they have had to resort to eating lice and rats which is too ghastly to imagine. Well I am off for another bout on the front line.

Soldiers would often lie to their families about life in the trenches.

39

Gallipoli, December 8th 1914 Dear Pegg, I am sorry about not writing sooner. There has been so much to do. I have kept out of strife by sticking to some nice French and Maori chaps (who have been here longer than I have!), affectionately nicknamed Froggy and Kiwi. I have a nickname too now. Skippy. Long story, but I showed the lads how a kangaroo moves. Anyway, I miss you and the children greatly, not to mention your home cooked meals! The cooking is like my aunt Silvia’s—awful but edible. Tell the children that I will not be home this Christmas, but next Easter I shall be home. We have the Jerries on the ropes.

Love to all, Charles

The New Year has rolled over and I am on the front line with Froggy and Kiwi. We are sharing the ciggies that Froggy’s misJanuary 1st 1915

sus sent him. It is a welcome relief from the conditions we have been sent to. It has rained heavily for the past two days and the trenches have flooded. The dugouts are barely above water and the duckboards sink lower into the slush pit with each step. It smells terrible because the water is polluted with the latrine’s contents. It is that bad that the rats will not even swim in it. I

40

JESSICA MCKAY

Gallipoli March 13th 1915 Dear Pegg, Thanks for the mittens, scarf and ciggies. The lads and I really appreciate them. The photographs of Ed and Myr really lightened my mood. Froggy and Kiwi say I have been unbearable. Look how big Ed and Myr are. They will be unrecognisable by the time I get home. I am quite sore that I missed Myr’s first articulated sentence and Ed’s cricket finals. Sorry about the short letter but the Serge will be calling Stand To soon.

Miss you all, Charles.

Froggy’s gone. He was put on the front line. A grenade blew his arm and leg off. He might have made it if the Jerry basOctober 27th 1915

tards had not finished him off with the gas. Poor sod. He was unrecognisable when we found him. Only the photo of his missus and his crucifix gave it away. I cannot tell them back home. I cannot write to my family of the horrors here. Damn those J

They lied to give them hope.

PEGGY JONES

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Gallipoli September 30th 1915

Dear Pegg, Sorry about Easter, but next Christmas I promise. Thanks for the extra mittens and scarves.

Kiwi loves them and refuses to take his off. Froggy loves the colour of his. Nothing much to talk about. It is the same, old, same old. Long boring hours standing at my post. Every letter from you is a godsend.

Love to all, Charlie.

What did we do to deserve this? I lost Kiwi. His brains are splattered on my uniform and in my hair. They ordered him over the godforsaken November 19th 1915

wall. He and the rest of the poor sods made it chest high before they were blown back into the trench. They sent two divisions over the wall.

All gone now.

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JESSICA MCKAY

Gallipoli December 24th 1915

Dear Pegg, I reckon your mother is right to worry about you. You should go and live with her for a while. She must miss the children as terribly as I do. It seems they like me too much to send me home, but I’ve talked to the men in charge and they say I will be home soon. We have the upper hand on the Germans. Hopefully I will be delivering the next letter in person.

Eternally yours, Charles.

Today is my 20th birthday, but I feel as if I lost the Sunday lunch February 25th 1916

draw. My division was ordered to go over the wall. There are a few young lads that do not look much older than my boy at home.

Many never made it back.

PEGGY JONES

43

Gallipoli March 3rd 1916

Dear Pegg, I will have to keep this one short. I managed to burn myself on one of my postings. Can you believe how careless I am? The sun out here is terrible. I have blisters that make it hurt to move on my arms and legs. Do not start stressin’. Kiwi’s looking after me. He’s even writing the letter for me as I am a bit too sore to write. I will see you soon.

Love to all, Charles.

44

JESSICA MCKAY

I pulled my slouch hat straight. I was fresh off the boat, back from my tour.

I didn’t feel like a hero. We lost too many good men and women in this war.

I had changed my name while I was on tour, and I was thinking of changing my name now I’m back. Almost all of the family came to see me at the docks. All except Grandma. She had been put in a home while I was away, so I was taking the kids to see her. I opened the door to her room and she lit up when she saw me.

‘Charlie is that you? You came back!’

I flinched at that word.

‘Yes grandma. I’m home.’

PEGGY JONES

45

46

The Strawberry Thief Linda Gooch

47

48

After breakfast, as he does every morning, Jack carries the teapot with its brackish dregs out into the garden to empty the leaves around the plants. The garden awakens and glistens in the new day. Jack is a small man, his voice is soft and he is not prone to grand gestures. He is always carefully groomed and closely shaven, even on the weekends. His hair is held in place with tonic, shirt pressed and shoes shined. In those recent moments of profound anguish, Jack has held himself together. Just.

Jack Browne, recently bereaved, spends each day taking tender care of

the garden. Their garden. Here is sanctuary, heaven on earth, as his wife Margaret had been fond of saying.

Jack would always nod his head and agree. Her cheerful chatter had filled the spaces in their days, leaving him to the easy comfort of his own thoughts. He was happiest drifting along in her wake. He would think something to say and a moment later she would speak it. Margaret had been his life’s blood.

This is how he has come to fill the empty moments of his day. He still

expects to look up and see Margaret’s straw hat bending down amongst the beans, or to hear snippets of her sweet singing voice, carried to him on the breeze. The garden had kept both of them occupied through all the seasons of their marriage. The pruning and planting, watering and harvesting of their bounty had eased the heartache of their barrenness. It was their blessing from God. 49

After the toil of the seasons,

at the end of summer, Margaret would heave baskets of produce into their kitchen and spend hours surrounded by bubbling pots and their sumptuous smells.

Much later she would reveal to Jack, with a damp-haired, rosycheeked flourish, her labour of love: pickles and jams, bottled fruits and jellies. More than enough for the two of them, and plenty to share.

But for Jack, in the last

languid, sultry days of summer, there was always a magnificent golden sponge cake. Seeming to float on the table, it was dusted with powdery sugar, plump with cream and topped with crimson juicy strawberries. They would devour the entire cake, slice by slice, until their noses were sticky, lips smeared red with berry and their stomachs groaned in protest.

50

Jack finds himself sitting on a bench at

the far end of the garden. The teapot has been left behind, somewhere in his wandering. The sun is warm enough now to bring a sweat to his forehead. In front of him is Margaret’s strawberry patch and the red berries, wrapped in green leaf, are nestled like infants on their straw bed. Jack eases down to his knees and reaches for the closest berry. Plucking it by its leafy stem, he pops it into his mouth, nipping the green stalk off with his teeth and flinging it into the garden.

Rich and juicy, the tart sweetness of the fruit fills his mouth and kneeling

alone at the bottom of their garden, as he has every day since that grey day in July, Jack weeps for his Margaret. It is here beside the berry patch that Jack can let his tears flow freely, as sudden and cleansing as a summer shower. As the taste of strawberry sweetness slips away, he wipes his eyes with rough hands and thinks of a dozen things he wishes he could tell her. He touches his fingers to his lips in a tender strawberry kiss. With a sigh and a bit of a cough, Jack climbs to his feet.

51

It is at that moment he notices a patch of green, bare of berries. He drops to his knees and reaches through to the middle of the strawberry bed. He lifts leaves and brushes aside runners, one by one, until he is sure.

With his cane he pokes at the weathered fence palings. Loose on their rusting nails, they rock to one side. For a moment he feels as if he is choking on the berry juice. He grips the handle of his cane. The gall rises to his throat. No sign of insects. No sign of possums. Over the past few days he knows he has taken only a few berries to test their sweetness. Yet here before him is a harvested patch of strawberry plants, well within arm’s reach of a hole in his fence.

52

The grimace that now twists his face would make the church ladies squeal

and swoon, and the menfolk stumble back in fright. The grief that has been churning and boiling in his gut finally ruptures hot and red. Jack has found someone to blame. He knows what to do. He turns and marches toward the house, his cane stabbing the air in front of him.

53

In the kitchen his hands are

shaking as he paces back and forth on the whispery lino. It’s as if the cancer that burnt through Margaret so quickly has again ignited, scorching through another of Jack’s precious things. As if the evil crab meant to snip away every tender memory and leave him empty, with neither the companionship of his loving wife, nor the fleeting comfort of the garden. Their garden.

Moving quickly from cupboard to bench, Jack assembles all that he will

need. He makes one quick trip to the garden shed, reaching high onto a cobwebbed shelf. Back in the kitchen he finds Margaret’s recipe book. It is a dog-eared, cake-spattered, handwritten grimoire filled with a lifetime of recipes.

In less than a pulse-beat, he removes from the oven twelve identical

cakes and lines them up on the bench, before smearing the tops with a lurid pink glaze of icing. The first few look clumsy, they crumble in his trembling hands, but the last is a seductive jewel of a cupcake. He tops his creation with a strawberry. Dusting his hands on his pants, he gathers cupcake and cane and makes his way to the back fence and the strawberry patch.

54

55

56

He places the cake in the centre of the patch, close to the fence and looks

about for something to sit on while he waits for the thief to take the bait. As he settles on an upturned crate he hears the rattle of loose palings and catches a flash of tan skin and pink tongue, and the cupcake is gone. The palings rock back into place.

Jack stands, stunned at the swiftness of his plan’s execution, the lightning

strike of punishment. The realisation hits him of the enormity of what he has done. This is no longer the swatting of an insect, the stinging slap to the bite of a hornet. No, this is something far more sinister. Jacks legs give way and he falls to his knees. He dry retches.

‘What have I done?’

57

58

59

60

AMY DE WET

Reaching The sky was naked, untainted by clouds. Below it was the humming sensation of the masses. People churned out of shops and cafes onto sidewalks, their skin glowing in the brightness of midday. Bodies twisted sideways, awkwardly shuffling past. Slight shoulder brushes were followed by polite apologies.

Everyone seemed to be on their own mission, with places to be and a list of things to do.

The hot metal seat at the bus stop burned my skin, a reminder of where I was meant to wait. Those who passed me stared, mouths ajar, wide eyes. They were all thinking it. What is she doing at a place like this?

Maybe if I were famous it would have been flattering. I would smile and agree to take photos. But I was no celebrity.

Cars blared their horns, whizzing through a blur of heat. Angry drivers circled like vultures, snapping up any vacant space. In the distance you could see the sun reflecting off the white sand. It was blinding, offensively bright, yet 61

somehow I found myself standing up and crossing the street, pulled toward the glistening halo and away from the esplanade.

More people spilled out onto the beach searching for ground to occupy.

Towels littered the sand, claiming territory. I watched from the steps descending down onto the beach, as crowds of people moved up and down like ants. Waves lapped the sand, stretching far, before they were pulled back by the undertow.

People splashed in the water then returned to their towels, before heading back to the ocean to swim once again, an endless cycle to escape the heat. But they would eventually return to the white sand, where they belonged. There were some who didn’t go into the ocean at all; they would lie in the sand, their raw skin at the mercy of the sun. Slowly burning.

I took my shoes off, my feet sinking into the sand as I approached an empty space, squished between a cluster of large bags and a spotted umbrella.

Smack. A cricket ball sailed across the clear sky. Flecks of sand flicked up into the air as the batter dove across the crease.

‘Good onya mate!’ a tall man shouted to the young batter. The other teammates high fived and shared their praises.

62

AMY DE WET

It reminded me of how I would watch my brothers play soccer in our street. When someone scored a goal, we would all cheer and dance. Dust would fly up, creating a smoky haze. The afternoon sunlight would catch on the specks dancing through the air. It was moments like those that made me appreciate the beauty of simple things.

A group of teens stopped laughing when they saw me. They were armed with sunscreen and surfboards. One of them pointed her long white finger at me.

‘She shouldn’t be here.’

Two men sat near me, speaking French. I waited for the same reaction, for gasps and prolonged stares, but nobody paid any attention to them.

I stood up, shook the sand off and walked towards the ocean. My eyes were drawn to the waves just failing to reach my feet. I took a few steps further, enjoying the feeling of the cool water sweeping over my ankles. I continued to walk forward, longing to dive into the cold, salty water. To disappear where nobody could look at me, where there was only silence.

Someone started yelling. I turned to see that part of the swarm had broken away, arranging themselves into a smaller group. Four boys roughly

REACHING

63

shoved each other. Some people craned their necks, sticking their noses out over their books. Loud conversations turned to whispers. A lifeguard approached the group. He stood with his arms crossed, a stern look on his face.

‘What do you want?’ The boy with the backwards cap spoke. He stumbled around clumsily.

‘You boys need to settle down, alright?’ He pointed towards the beers in their hands. ‘And get rid of those. Now.’ The boy scowled. ‘Why don’t you just mind your own bloody business?’

He looked ready to fight.

I had seen that look before, cold eyes that wanted one thing. Blood.

Midnight. It usually happened around midnight.

11:59 pm, everyone was sound asleep. But I heard it, the sound of glass breaking and angry chants. A sliver of moonlight shone into the room. I slipped out from under the covers and tiptoed towards the window, pulling back the blinds.

Men were everywhere, running through the streets. They held torches, 64

AMY DE WET

setting buildings on fire. A man turned and caught my eye, the flames illuminating his face. A cold hand landed on my shoulder. I gasped, pulling back from the window. Abi stood behind me.

‘You mustn’t stand near the window. Go back to bed.’

The boy in the cap stopped glaring at the lifeguard. It was as if he felt my eyes watching him. His own dark eyes quickly grazed the crowd before honing in on me. Just like that night. Bullseye. The ugly scowl shifted into a smirk.

‘I’m sorry, Sir.’ His voice was sickly sweet. ‘We’ll be outta your hair, c’mon boys.’

Water surged around my legs, the sudden force of a wave almost causing me to fall over. Inhale. Exhale. I ripped through the strong current of water, desperate to escape. A group of kids jumped out of the way as I hurried through clumps of wet sand. It was sticking to my feet. Inhale. Exhale. I ducked between a couple holding hands. The hem of my burqa was heavy and damp, slowing me down. Inhale. Exhale. There was no way I would be able to blend into this crowd. I was a black mound amongst the pallet of bright colours and pale naked bodies. My eyes searched for where I was sitting before; I had left

REACHING

65

my shoes to mark my spot. But blank spaces didn’t last long here. Shoes were no match for umbrellas and beach tents. Inhale. Exhale. My feet caught on the thick fabric and I fell onto the sand. Pure white flecks covered my body.

‘Hey! Get off my towel!’

People stepped around me, casting wary glances at the strange girl who had fallen onto someone else’s territory. Inhale. Exhale. I scrambled up, turning to look back where the boys once stood. I couldn’t see them. The swarm was moving again. Back to the constant swirl and churn of people. Inhale. The show was over. Exhale.

I spotted a small vacant patch of sand near a rock wall and made my way, dodging in and out of people to claim the spot. Inhale.

I watched the ocean through the cracks between sun chairs and umbrellas. Exhale. Waves thrust forward, reaching for the shoreline. Inhale.

The waters were pulled back into the ocean. The waves never stopped trying, constantly reaching no matter how many times they were refused.

Two bright blue eyes interrupted my view. A small girl fell at my feet in a heap. She began to smile, twisting her arms around my legs.

‘What’s your name?’

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AMY DE WET

I smiled back. She giggled. A woman hurried over. She had the same blue eyes, though hers were filled with fear rather than curiosity. Protective arms grabbed the young girl. They scurried back into the safety of the swarm.

Heavy footsteps crushed the sand.

‘Oi,’ the boy in the backwards cap yelled. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. The others began to laugh at me. Each sound reverberated through my mind. ‘I was talking to you.’ The beer in his hand sloshed, spilling onto the white sand, staining it.

Inhale. Exhale. My hands grasped the tiny grains. They were itchy and coarse.

‘Listen here, you little brat.’ He took a step closer. His friends stood behind him, all watching with the same dark eyes.

I scanned the beach for a familiar face. But only strangers passed with pursed lips and small frowns.

Tsk, tsk. I could hear the sound of disapproving adults who watched from the sidelines. Oblivious witnesses flicked through the pages of their newspapers, with headlines screaming: Terrorists Strike Again. Others observed more cautiously, as if I were a ticking bomb, ready to explode.

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67

Their voices were still there, a low murmur reminding me of where I didn’t belong, no matter how many times I reached for it. I closed my eyes, remembering the hopefulness I had felt those few months ago.

The same clear sky lay above a different crowd of wandering people. We were all waiting for papers that promised freedom. I drew pictures in the dirt of what I imagined my life would be like.

‘That’s a nice house,’ Mamma said, wrapping her arms around me.

‘One day we will have one like it. Just how we used to.’ She kissed me before wandering off to my brothers.

I smiled down at the picture and began to draw surfboards and kangaroos.

‘You’re lucky,’ the girl next to me with long hair spoke, ‘you and your family are going to get out a lot sooner than the rest of us.’

‘Hopefully, we all will.’

‘I’ve heard it’s such a beautiful place.’

She stared down at my pictures, her eyes filled with the same longing we all shared. ‘Nothing bad ever happens there.’

68

AMY DE WET

Something smacked my face. My eyes stung as I wiped away flecks of sand.

Their voices were harsher now, like bullets slicing through the still air.

I jumped at the sudden crash of the waves. The ocean thrashed against the sand, struggling to grip the shoreline only to be dragged back into the sea.

Waves did not belong upon the sand. There was no room for them here.

I frantically searched the beach. Then it dawned on me; the metal bus seat. I tried to get up, but their bodies formed an unrelenting wall. Blocking the ocean. I squeezed my eyes shut and stretched my mouth as wide as it could go, preparing to hurl out a cry for help.

‘Adab!’

The sun’s harsh glare invaded my eyes.

‘Adab!’ someone called again.

My brother raced towards me. The tightness in my chest loosened. Exhale.

They were gone. All that was left was a patch of sand, stained by the beer. The empty space didn’t last long as a group of girls spread out their towels and dumped their large, overflowing bags.

Someone grabbed my hands, freeing them from their grasp in the sand.

My brother’s warm hand closed around mine and together we walked away.

REACHING

69

The tide was well out by now. It left a raw stretch of sand, scarred by the waves and the footprints of people. It was dotted with debris that they had forgotten to take home.

Beyond that, the ocean hummed in the distance, promising a return.

70

AMY DE WET

REACHING

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72

Why Micro Fiction?

In the rush of today’s techno age our methods of communicating have shrunk. From letters to emails to SMS to statuses to tweets, we aim for bite-size. We look, devices in hand, for something to read between stops on the train, while standing in line for coffee or on rushed lunch breaks at work. So in this world of shrinking information that is constantly consumed – all in the palm of our hand – does it stand to reason that our literature should do the same?

Microfiction is certainly not a new concept. In fact, Robert Shapard in ‘The Remarkable Reinvention of Very Short Fiction’ suggests that the first microfiction was published on a tablet in Ancient Egypt. However, since the advent of the Internet, there has certainly been a rise of online anthologies and literary magazines dedicated entirely to microfiction. Labelled many names from flash and quick to nano and hint fiction, these short narratives are by nature bold. At once subjected to the same rules as novels or short stories (they contain plot, theme and character arcs), yet at the same time seeking outside these parameters to experiment and transgress (such as the urban legend of Hemingway and his six-word story – For Sale: baby shoes. Never worn).

In this way, microfiction has grown into its own genre and art form; a platform for experimentation, quality and skill. The appeal of microfiction is to showcase masters of craft and commanders of words, who in less than 500 words, can speak to a new brand of reader. And in doing so, in our fast-paced digital age, perhaps we might read something that will give us pause; long enough to experience something beautiful, and maybe even be changed by it.

Isn’t that why literature exists? Even the shortest, most bite-sized variety.

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Micro Snippets Then, Now – Lachlan Haycock

“The bus rolls backwards down the street, stops in front of her, and the doors open. The passengers inside, like her housemates, turn their attention to the outside world, giving her space to breathe and relax.”

A story told in reverse, ‘Then, Now’ is a poignant un-telling of a girl’s struggle to be accepted.

Mind Your Manners – Jade Mitchell “She was three interviews in when her day brightened just that little bit.”

In this humorous cautionary tale, Jade Mitchell explores why you really should mind your manners.

No Time for Bitterness – Nicole McRae “Even now, as time eases you from me, I feel only gratitude.”

In ‘No Time for Bitterness’, Nicole McRae reminds us of the lighter side of a partner’s passing; remembering a life well-lived.

Pit Stop – Linda Gooch “Mum would not approve. Oh dear, Angela. She could hear the disappointment.”

Life is a journey, and it is in the small moments, the pit stops in between, that big things may be decided. Linda Gooch explores one such moment in ‘Pit Stop’.

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Share – Hannah Forsdike “I remembered taking the photo. I remember thinking I looked good, grown up.”

A stark reminder of how easy it is to lose one’s privacy on the Internet, ‘Share’ explores the dangers of sharing your intimate moments with the digital world.

Antique – Timothy Riley “The little things are what make you grieve.”

Timothy Riley delves into the nature of grief in this story, as a father and son try to find the will to move on.

Smoke and Mirrors – Bianca Millroy “Trust no one. Raise the alarm. Tell no one. Panic!”

In ‘Smoke and Mirrors’, two sisters’ imitation game goes horrifically wrong.

75

Then, Now

by Lachlan Haycock

Tendrils of dream swirl in and out, back and forth, through the muddled expanse of unconsciousness. Slowly the tendrils disappear, replaced by a keyhole of light in the centre of her vision, which expands, and she opens her eyes.

The woman lies on her mattress, head pushed into the pillow, and the world is sad. Beads of translucent liquid run up her cheeks and hide behind redrimmed eyelids. Eventually, she rises.

Her headscarf flies out of the cupboard, securing itself upon her, and her prayer mat rolls itself up on the carpet. Once her prayers are said and done, she emerges into the hallway, the distressed looks of her housemates morph into smiles as they turn their attention to the TV. She walks towards the door and her bag, full of books, leaps up from the floor and onto her shoulders.

Walking to the bus stop at the end of the road, the last remaining tears withdraw, leaving her cheeks clear. The bus rolls backwards down the street, stops in front of her, and the doors open. The passengers inside, like her 76

housemates, turn their attention to the outside world, giving her space to breathe and relax.

Soon, the bus arrives on campus.

She adjusts her headscarf and passers-by continue to look away, their frowns shifting into smiles. The other students seem to part before her, kindly allowing her to pass through them. She heads to class and tries to make an effort. Though the other students ignore her for most of the lesson, eventually she manages to get a word in.

She adjusts her headscarf and passers-by continue to look away.

Likewise, her lunchtime at the cafĂŠ is mostly without company. But as wallets get put back in pockets, coffee is handed back to the barista and sucked up into the machine, and meals are broken up into their separate components and put back in tubs, people begin to gather around,

making her feel welcome in a foreign land.

Her other classes are all the same, like they always are, and the bus ride to her house is the same as all the rest. At home, her shoes untie themselves and find their way onto the rack near the door, and her headscarf flies back into the cupboard, followed by the rest of her clothes. Her pyjamas leap up from the bed over her shoulders, and in the kitchen, a breakfast of toast and fruit disassembles itself on her plate and jumps back into the fridge.

The woman’s energy seems to drain.

She lies down on her bed, eyes closing, a keyhole of light twisting in on itself to become swirling blackness, and the world is happy.

77

When life hands you lemons LINDA MORSE

When life hands you lemons, make lemonade. That’s what my gran always says.

But then these days she says some crazy things. The other day she told me that the car wouldn’t start without hair ties. What she really meant was it wouldn’t start without the keys.

She does crazy things too, like she puts the keys and her hair ties in the freezer. Why would you do that?

That’s what my gran always says.

My gran has lovely hair; it’s a beautiful white grey, not that yucky dull grey. Her hair is long and she wears it in a plait that hangs down her back.

My gran likes to wear tied dyed pants, boho tops and leather sandals.

Mum says she’s a hippy who hasn’t grown up. My mum is very practical.

Mum gets angry with her sometimes because she tells the same stories over and over again. My gran loves to tell me stories of when she was growing up, and how she marched down the streets of Melbourne to protest 78

against the Vietnam War.

She talks to me about a coffee shop in Carlton called The Bread Stick where she used to have lunch every day when she worked at the university. The pottery shop next door, Portobello Road, was where she purchased things for her glory box on lay-by.

Then she explains to me what those words mean.

She talks about typewriters and record players. She has an iPod now.

My gran was smart and funny and laughed a lot. Now she is sad, and cries and says she feels lost.

My gran lost her beautiful hair today. She isn’t well enough to keep it long and look after it, so Mum took her to get it cut.

My gran is sick, she has a brain illness. Some people call it dementia.

That’s why we sometimes find the keys, the hair ties and the lemons in the freezer.

I love my gran; she isn’t crazy, she’s sick.

I ask Gran how she feels and she smiles a sad smile and says, ‘When life hands you lemons, you make lemonade.

What else can you do?’

The Weather MICHAEL HIGGINS

The TV was on and it was stormy outside.

A family sat around the lounge room. The wind buffeted the side of the house, the rain rattled on the windows. All faces were turned to the screen. The sport section was on, or something. It didn’t matter because the sound was muted.

THUNK!

The mother startled. A tree branch must have blown onto the shed roof.

The daughter read the reporter’s lips and guessed what they were saying.

She liked the bits that didn’t show their faces—the bits that panned over generic landscapes or cities or, in this case, the crowd in a sports stadium. The reporter might have been saying just about anything you could imagine. She glanced about discreetly, wondering what her family might have been imagining. The wind blew harder.

Now the face was back on the screen and the lips were making familiar shapes.

‘... And over to Jenny with the weather forecast.’

‘Who has the remote?’ said the father.

Everyone checked their laps and adjacent couch-space. Everyone except the mother, whose head had nodded,

dozing.

‘Honey! Unmute the TV, please.’

‘... With showers, rain, and isolated thunderstorms. thirty-nine millimetres has fallen …’

The rain outside grew heavier, hammering on the tin roof of the house, and the howl of the wild wind sent all other sounds running.

‘Would you turn it up please darling, I can’t hear the weather.’

79

Mind Your Manners Jade Mitchell

Her coffee was too hot. Amber sighed, folded her paper under her arm and handed over the required change to the cashier at the train newsagent. The lady gave her a tired smile, already worn out from the morning rush, despite it being only seven o’clock.

Amber nodded and headed out of the store. Abruptly, she took a step back, holding away her coffee as someone almost ran into her.

Rolling her eyes, she took a careful sip of her coffee—still too hot—and looked both ways before attempting to exit the shop again.

At the platform, she checked her watch and slowly sipped her coffee. Her train pulled in. The usual crowd pushed forward as the doors opened.

Amber held back, not keen to get squashed and headed in when the jostling crowd had settled down. She gave a little nod to the conductor, who waved back, before she was suddenly shoved sideways.

Coffee splattered down her front.

‘Fuck!’

Frantically pulling the shirt away from her skin, she muttered a sour ‘thanks’.

The young man who’d barged past 80

her cast her a sideways glance. An old scar pulled at his eyebrow as he sneered at her, blue eyes flashing.

‘Why don’t you watch where you’re going, bitch,’ he snapped and disappeared down the train aisle.

Amber stared after him, stunned at the reaction to something that had clearly been his fault. She scowled.

‘Are you alright ma’am?’

She looked up into the face of the train conductor. She nodded and shrugged in a ‘what can you do’ manner.

He smiled and held out a hand. He was a big man, his hand easily engulfed her own, but his eyes were kind as he helped her onto the train.

‘Don’t let it get you down,’ he said.

She smiled. Once the train was on the move again she pulled out her phone and called her assistant.

‘Hi Margaret,’ she said. ‘Can you duck down to the third floor and get me a new shirt?’

‘Sure, are you alright?’

‘Yes, just a little accident. Have any of the applicants turned up yet?’

‘Two.’

Amber sighed. ‘Alright, thanks. See you in a few minutes.’

She was three interviews in when her day brightened from stormy to a sun shower. The door opened and Margaret ushered in another applicant. Amber waited a moment before looking up. The applicant paused halfway to his seat, hands clenched on the arms of the chair.

A sharp smile blossomed on her face. ‘Good morning,’ she said cheerfully.

‘I see you’re applying for our customer service job? What qualities do you think a person should present in a job such as this?’

The young man slumped in his chair, blue eyes unable to meet her gaze.

‘I’m not getting the job, am I?’ he mumbled.

A flush crept over his cheeks. An old scar stood out against the blush of shame.

Her smile only widened.

81

The Malteser Falcon ALEXANDRA HODGSON

Dad says it’s a ‘doggie dog’ world and the toughest dogs come from the sandpit.

New kids come and go like horses on a merry-go-round. The visionaries stay longer, trying to clean it up, but they don't like to get their hands too dirty.

It's where I first got the idea for my little business, after watching some three-foot loser flunk out with a cute blonde. He couldn't even s-s-squeeze more than a couple of s-s-syllables through that giant gap in his teeth, and she soon toddled off to join the playdough crowd.

He was my first customer.

I made my way around the playground like any other day. Real slow.

Real casual-like. It was easy to drop into conversations here and there. Pick up the threads, and make a few jokes to warm them up. Drop a few names. Spread a few rumours.

Word soon got around, like it does.

Chinese Whispers and all. Before long 82

poor Stutters was s-s-swamped.

‘Is it true you saved that poor kitty from the tree?’

‘I heard you broke every bone in your body!’

‘When you were in the coma could you really fly around the room as a ghost?’

I took a bite of my Curly Wurly and shook my head. It was almost too easy.

Kids these days.

I was poking around in the sand after recess when Puddles came sidling up to me, sweating like it wasn't the middle of winter.

‘Stutt … I mean, Stanley told me what you did for him.’

‘Keep it down,’ I growled. ‘Do you want to get us both thrown in time-out?’ I glanced around to make sure no one else was watching. I had my own reputation to maintain after all.

‘I could really use your help,’ he continued, sheepishly, after what seemed like a nap time. ‘I want to ask Kimmy on a playdate, but she would never …’

‘I don't work for free,’ I yawned, cutting him off. I knew Kimmy from finger painting. She was a knock out, and this heavyweight chump was on the ropes before the bell had even rung.

Though, I always did like a challenge.

‘Of course!’ Puddles fumbled in his pocket and retrieved a half-eaten, half-melted Mars bar. I could see tufts of grey lint clinging to the caramel.

‘You've got to be kidding me,’ I flashed him the withering look I usually reserved for poopy-heads and paste-eaters. He started sputtering excuses.

‘I can get more! You can have my bar every day for a week! Snickers, Milky Bar, Maltesers … whatever you want!

Mum buys the family size bags.’

I could hear the desperation in his voice. His sweat reeked of it too, that bitter tang of loneliness. It was big money in a small-town kindy like this, and the rumbling in my pipes told me I’d regret not taking the deal later.

‘Fine,’ I said, waving my signature spade casually. ‘But you better be good for it.’ I drew a sharp line in the sand.

‘Or else.’

‘Oh thank you, Sammy! Thank you!’ Were those grateful tears or sweat tracks? It was hard to tell.

‘Now scram, kid.’ I watched him roll to his feet and wobble out of sight before I stuffed the Mars into my mouth, fluff and all. With a high-circulating nickname like ‘Puddles’ this was going to be a tough case to crack.

But hey, they didn’t call me Sammy Spade for nothing.

83

No Time for Bitterness NICOLE MCRAE

Tonight is unusually bright. Moonlight seeps between our curtains, spilling across the sparse furnishings of our tiny room. I do not need the light of this late hour to reach you, for although time has altered your features, I know every freckle, wrinkle and scar that mars your flesh.

I remember how you got that gash in your brow at my 28th birthday party, when you tried to clean up the broken beer bottles in the kitchen. My fear was that you would cut yourself on the shattered shards, but in your fuddled state you split your brow on the edge of the bench instead. Three stitches I’ll never forget. You laughed the whole way through it.

Your breaths have become weak but steady with sleep. Like all the times we sat together in peaceful silence in the garden and you’d nap with your head nestled into my neck. After dinner we’d spend the evenings swaying in silence to the synchrony of our hearts. Other days the music played loudly and we danced the quickstep with two left feet. Laughter filled our home as the sound of our barrelling hearts reached their crescendo.

Not like now, when your heart sounds like it is walking away. Tonight is the 84

farthest it has ever sounded.

I remember when times were hard, the way you walked away from fights. Your footsteps echoed in the hall, thundered down the stairs and disappeared behind the slamming door.

When you tried to sneak back in, every floorboard in our crooked house gave you away, and when you crawled into bed, your side was always warm, waiting for your return. Although we were stubborn, we never failed to apologise.

Loving you was more important than being right.

Even now, as time eases you from me, I feel only gratitude. Every day of our life you cared for me, protected me and loved me beyond doubt. I want to tell you all these things but there’s not enough time. We could never have enough time.

My heart condenses to a whisper; thank you for giving me the best days of my life.

The last words you’ll ever hear. A weak sigh is your only response.

One final step and your heart crosses the threshold. One final breath; a slamming door that will never open.

I will not grow bitter as your body grows cold. Time did not rob you from

me. Although our life was far from easy, time was kind to us.

85

Antique TIMOTHY RILEY

When Mum turned 50, she felt insecure about her age. Dad made a joke about it once. He called her an antique. Quick as that, she said back to him, though an antique might be old, it still had value.

‘I never said you didn’t,’ he replied.

It’s one of my fondest memories of Mum. The few weeks after that, she never felt insecure again. She had a reasserted sense of value. We didn’t actually realise how much we valued her, until after she died later that year.

I don’t know if Dad or I ate anything until the day of the funeral.

We headed home after the wake and sat at the kitchen table in silence. It came suddenly, the realisation we’d have to figure out our own lunches for the first time. The little things are what set you off. Dad had never cried in front of me before, but I watched him melt trying to peel apart two pieces of ham. The little things are what make you grieve.

Six years later, I convinced him to put their house up for auction.

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It wasn’t easy though.

‘Dad, this place is a mausoleum.

You need to move on.’

He wouldn’t have any of it. ‘No, this is my house. This was your mother’s house.’ He was as unmoving as Mum’s headstone.

‘C’mon, Dad,’ I choked. ‘Mum wouldn’t want you to rot here. You need to move on with your life.’

He placed his hands over his face and exhaled into them. ‘Son, for twenty-six years, I’ve sat in that chair in that room and eaten a ham and tomato sandwich while I watched that television.’

He turned away from me but quietly added, almost to himself, ‘And that’s where I’ll die.’

I cried then. My father was a strong man, but his eyes gave in with mine. ‘Son, this is my haunt. It’s where I belong.’

‘Old haunts are for forgotten ghosts, Dad.’ I left him there, alone in Mum’s kitchen. I got a phone call three days

later telling me he’d put the house up for auction, and had found a new apartment in West End.

We spent the next few weeks packing up his and Mum’s old things.

Some things were put in boxes, others on the side of the road. He painted the walls, and I retinted the windows. Dad’s friends couldn’t recognise it when they came to help him move.

I never made it to auction, but I did call him to see how it went.

‘I guess it went well. Almost five-hundred.’

‘I’m glad. That house was nothing but an antique.’

‘Now, now,” he said. “It might be old, but it still has value.’

‘I never said it didn’t.’

87

Twenty Eighty-Four ALEXANDRA HODGSON I opened my eyes.

The fluorescent lights flickered as Mother chimed the hour and wished me a pleasant and productive cycle in her curt, monotone voice.

I wriggled into my freshly sterilised uniform beneath the blanket, ignoring the unblinking red light on the ceiling.

Privacy was a luxury when your every move was monitored.

Scrutinised. Broadcasted.

The familiar chime that preceded an announcement from Mother echoed in every room and corridor.

‘Congratulations Brother 104.

Please report to the reclamation bay for immediate processing.’

I’d worked beside 104 in the food production line filling nutrient packs.

Was that a week ago? Or was it a month?

There was no way to mark the passage of time except for the beating of your heart and Mother's gently insistent chiming. She told us when to wake, to eat, to work, to socialise, to sleep. Even our bowel movements were perfectly orchestrated for maximum efficiency.

Brothers and Sisters hurried about their rituals, gossiping excitedly, wondering aloud at who would be selected next. They self-consciously 88

smoothed their hair and tugged their uniforms straight but like professional actors never looked directly into the lenses.

I waited at the canteen hatch for my daily ration to be dispensed. Earth looked beautiful and fragile, floating beyond the glass ceiling in a halo of stars. Just out of reach.

Another Sister, 112, suddenly collapsed, writhing and sweating. No one moved. In less than 20 heartbeats the Wardens had swept her out of sight with only the barest whisper of well-greased gears.

Mother’s soothing, artificial voice asked us to please remain calm.

Everything was under control.

Have a pleasant and productive cycle.

We smiled for the cameras, dabbing politely at the sweat on our upper lips, hiding our shaking hands beneath the tables.

Sometimes I had dreams that a vast, rippling sea of people were cheering for me. Then buds of fire blossomed in the sky and I was swept along helplessly in the frantic crush until a yawning mouth swallowed me in suffocating darkness.

At the next chime I descended

the four hundred steps to the workshop to begin my scheduled daily labour assignment.

‘Congratulations, Sister 186.

Please report to the reclamation bay for immediate processing.’

During recreation some Sisters complained of headaches, and Wardens glided down the corridors, silently whisking twitching bodies away on stretchers.

Always Mother reminded us to remain calm, but there was a sickly tension boiling beneath the surface. I could see it in the paranoid, darting way their eyes flickered to the lenses and back.

Everything is under control.

Every day I woke shivering and sweating with screams ringing in my ears.

It felt more like a memory than a dream now.

Have a pleasant and productive cycle.

Brothers clenched their trembling fists. Sisters clotted in doorways and stair wells, whispering and mopping at their feverish skin.

As I stood in line, gazing up at Earth, a Brother jumped up on a table.

‘Let us out!’ he cried to the cameras.

Please remain calm.

‘We need help out here! Can’t you see we're sick?’ he shrieked.

Everything is under control.

‘Why won't you let us out? Why won't you stop the show?’ he sobbed.

Wardens spilled into the hall, their steel claws clicking, gears whirring. They snatched him away and he shrieked as his bones snapped and crunched beneath the tyres.

‘Have a pleasant and productive cycle,’ Mother cooed.

It took less than ten heartbeats for the calm, quiet hall to descend into absolute chaos.

Brothers and Sisters dropped their trays and I was shoved along, caught up in the surge towards … where? There was nowhere to run.

‘Stop!’ I yelled, straining against the flow. ‘There’s no way out!’

My hands caught on a doorway and I wrenched myself through. The panicked crowd continued to rush past, blind in their terror and sickness as Wardens hunted them down.

Silently. Efficiently.

There were more screams. Then there was less.

Soon, it was silent.

89

Eyes in the Dark DUSTY MILLERS

She calls for me.

‘Daddy, please. I'm scared.’

She's my little girl. I can't say no to her.

I trudge down the hallway, wondering what her fascinating imagination has conjured this time.

I pause at the door, hiding my yawn. I need to seem alert, or she scolds me. It's so adorable.

I walk in. She is cradling her knees.

I sit down next to her, lean against the headboard, and ask her what happened.

‘There's a monster in my room.’

Perhaps it’s under the bed this time.

Or behind the door. Or a ghost hiding behind the bookshelf. Unfortunately her nightlight casts shadows everywhere. I stretch a bit as I stand.

‘It's not under the bed.’

I walk over to the bookshelf.

‘It's not there either, Daddy.’

All the usual places are eliminated.

This revelation concerns me. I can't protect her.

‘It's in the wardrobe, Daddy.’

I sit back on the bed and hug her tight.

She makes me happy, she is so precious, and nothing will ever change that.

90

She had heard me say this to her mother once. ‘You are the sun in my night, and the cool shade in my day.’

Since her mother passed, I tell her this every day so she always remembers how special she is to me. Sometimes children don't understand.

‘Daddy, I love you too. Please get the monster for me? It's in the wardrobe.’

‘Are you sure it wasn't just a dream?’

I ask.

‘I saw it looking at me. Its eyes are scary.’

I stood, preparing to see the empty space, preparing to have the same talk to her. Dreams are dreams. I reach for the handle. I pull open the door. I see the empty space.

Occupied by my 9-year-old daughter.

‘There's a monster in my bed, Daddy.’

Faces AMY BAILEY

A face is all we are given to tell our stories. They come to us at birth. In each and every town all over the world, faces materialise as tiny, new lungs that draw in breath. The faces often appear in the most unlikely places—atop the refrigerator, behind the couch or even in the dog’s bed. Some cities build large underground warehouses so people can store their faces there, not knowing what else to do with them. Others prefer to place the face in a position of importance in the house for all their friends and family to see. Either way, the faces always change and grow—some even say record.

At first, the faces are plain with smooth skin and blank expressions. They look more like masks than faces. You can tell there is a flicker behind the eyes but it doesn’t quite show through. Over time, as the person gets older, the faces begin to change. The cheeks may become more angular and defined or more round and lush. The eyes could sink further into the skull like deep wells or they might lengthen into almond halves. The faces begin to take on a life of their own. The weird thing is they never look anything like the person’s real life face at all. Some don’t even look entirely human. There have been faces with the slitted eyes of a

cat and golden whiskers that tickle your nose as you walk by. Another might be covered in shimmering green scales and have the aroma of damp moss. But no matter what the faces look like or where in the world you live, there is one ritual that remains the same.

Every year on their birthday, a person will go and look at the face that is theirs. They will sit before their icon and look into its depths and survey every inch of the gift given to them. And if you are lucky, it is told that as you look and look at the face that is yours but does not look like you, the feeling of a vague whisper will tingle in your mind. This whisper will be like the slow, soft sound of the wind. Or the silent creep of a pale fog.

Then, deep within yourself, something that could be akin to the clear, pure sound of a bell will reverberate within you, and in that moment you will feel it.

A faint flicker of recognition.

91

Pit Stop LINDA GOOCH

‘You should’ve gone at the bloody roadhouse!’ Dougie braked hard and pulled the car to the side of the road, red dust overtaking them. Ange didn’t answer. What could she say? She should have, and now he was angry.

Unclipping, Ange rubbed her shoulder and belly where the seat belt had slammed tight. She slid out the door and down to the ground, her feet skidding in the loose gravel. She winced as the baby bounced on her bladder.

‘Where can I go?’

‘Anywhere you bloody like,’ he snapped. ‘Just get a move on!’

He hunched away from her, a rollie already in production.

Ange was angry at herself for how she sounded. Was it only six months ago that she’d been confident and sassy enough to make sure he noticed that twitch of her skirt and little glimpse of panty?

The sun belted down; Ange could feel its sting on her shoulders. Something smelt dead. There was the drone of a blowfly. Off to the side was an old fence.

Beyond that, a whole lot of nothing.

She considered just squatting down 92

beside the ute. Mum would not approve.

Oh dear, Angela. She could hear the disappointment. The fence would have to do.

The wooden post was disintegrating, no way it would hide her from passing cars. She fumbled with the pin on her zipper, then pulled down her shorts and underpants in one roll. Squatting, she let go. Hot wee hit the dusty ground, fast. It felt so good she didn’t care that it splashed on her feet. She leaned one hand on the post, feeling woozy.

A snake unwound out of the shadow; it was a big one. The eyes were flat, black and cold. Ange couldn’t move, transfixed by its stare. It was only a few inches from where she squatted, her naked slit still pee-damp and chilling in the air. The pulse beating in her head the only sound. She could feel a scream coming, and choked it back in her throat.

Ange couldn’t look away from the jigsaw of scales around its eyes, their perfect, silver symmetry.

The snake moved again, stretched toward her. Its tongue flicked in, out. The scream was coming; Ange could feel it.

The baby squirmed, uncomfortable in

the squat. Ange launched herself away from the snake and landed on her bum with a yelp. Pants around her ankles, she frantically pushed herself up to look for it.

Dougie honked the horn, it was loud in the silence and shocked her into action. She imagined his impatient thump on the steering wheel. She scrambled back from the snake. It reared its head, observed her once more, and

slithered back to the post and out the other side.

Surprisingly, strangely furious, Ange pulled her pants up and ran back to the ute.

‘This is stupid,’ she pulled open the car door. ‘Take me home. I’ve changed my mind!’

93

Smoke and Mirrors BIANCA MILLROY

It wasn’t the first time I’d forged a signature.

Some say: Imitation is the highest form of flattery, unless it’s illegal of course. Imitating a dead girl’s signature is, by law, prosecutable. But, innocent

until proven guilty, I always say.

My sister Emily and I lived by that motto.

We also plagiarised clichéd quotes.

After all, a sister is both your equal and your opposite. So, if there are holes in the plot, or perhaps a few scorch marks on the page, I 94

cannot be held accountable.

How to Become a Missing Person: A Step-by-step Guide

1. Trust no-one

It was only one little white lie: just a membrane of ash that had gone adrift.

As time went on, more lies were thrown onto the pile; feeding it. Before long, I was putting pen to paper, my lie seeping through the pages like molten lava.

My instincts told me it was wrong, yet the better I was at our imitation game, the more I lost sight of myself. It never crossed my mind that my motive was, in fact, driven by breaking every rule. If she could get away with it then why not me?

Emily had coerced her way into every one of my relationships, but I would make sure she wouldn’t be weaving her sticky web around the next. Like the dolls we played with as little girls, some things were not meant to be shared.

I never intended to go as far as I

did; but then again, we are only human.

Even laying in our beds that night, I could have mistaken my sister for a reflection of me. Perhaps it was the mirror playing tricks on me again.

My fist made contact with the mirror, shattering it with such force that my reflection spat back across the room at me.

I flicked the metal tab, waiting for the spark. Trust no-one.

2. Raise the alarm

From the car window, I watched the fire rescue arrive, sirens wailing.

Sergeant Smythe placed the handheld to his lips. ‘Retreat. The suspect is inside. Secure the perimeter.

Where there’s smoke there’s …’

The radio dissolved into static as the firefighters inside were engulfed. They emerged minutes later, hands empty but for the blackened marks of their ruthless opponent. The house was declared a crime scene, and taped off until the blaze could be contained. The only evidence recovered was a broken mirror, the charred remnants of my sister’s diary and

a lighter with the initials ‘E.R.’.

The sergeant turned to face the back seat, ‘Miss Robinson, I’m afraid we are going to have to take you to the station until the firemen can determine the cause … and locate the body.’

3. Tell no-one

The sergeant ushered me down the long, white corridor to a set of glass doors.

He turned to me, ‘There’s something you should know, Miss Robinson.’

I remained unperturbed. ‘Just Jane is fine.’

‘The fire crews found evidence of your sister being trapped inside.’

‘She’s dead?’ I tried to act surprised.

‘Did they find the cause?’

The sergeant nodded grimly, ‘We have reason to suspect arson. Until the lab results come, we will be keeping you here for...safety.’

I crossed my arms, ‘I expect Emily’s … history will be taken into account?’

‘There are always two sides to a story, Miss Robinson.’

Tell no-one.

4. Panic!

Sergeant Smythe drew out a chair in the confined space. He had dressed for the occasion: a tie with a handcuff pattern. Nice touch.

‘Did your wife pick that?’

The sergeant blinked, ‘I’m 95

only going to repeat this once, Miss Robinson. I’ve called you in today because we received a Missing Person’s report. It seems someone wanted to raise suspicion that your sister escaped after starting the fire’. I kept eye contact with the Sergeant. ‘How perculiar ...

Anything else, Sarge?’

‘Forensics have their findings. The handwriting in the diary wasn’t Emily’s, and neither were the fingerprints on her lighter. So either you tell me about the supposed disappearance of your sister or …’ His voice trailed off. … or else.

There was nothing to hide, not even the faint smile that spread to my lips. ‘My sister always liked to play with fire,’ I confessed. ‘I guess the habit just … caught on.’

With Emily gone the steel around my wrists was almost a welcome feeling.

24 hours earlier …

I opened my laptop. The screen flickered to life. I selected the search bar and typed:

What if my twin sister How to frame someone for Report a missing person

I hesitated, sharp inhale, and then

96

pressed ‘enter’.

How to Report a Missing Person: A StepBy-Step Guide:

1.

2.

3.

4.

Don’t panic!

Try not to raise alarm.

Find someone you trust Tell them everything you know.

The cursor hovered, daring me to

click.

It’s time, Jane. Each word I typed severed the rope around us; the umbilical cord that fed her lies and hate. A lie has speed, but truth has endurance.

Write the suicide diary. Position the evidence. Then trigger the alarms.

Innocent until proven guilty? All the evidence now pointed at her. That was the only way the truth would find its way out, wriggling like a blind maggot.

No more smoke and mirrors.

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Share

HANNAH FORSDIKE They’ll tell you over and over again, but you won’t listen. Some middle-aged guidance counsellor who smells like piss because she doesn’t believe in antiperspirant will tell you about all the perverted corners of the internet your photo will end up in.

You’ll sit in class and think this old lady doesn’t know shit.

‘This doesn’t apply to me, Miss. I always crop my face out,’ a girl in my class shouted. Everyone laughed and one of her friends said, ‘Everyone knows what your tits look like Madison, you get them out whenever you can’. Everyone laughed harder. The counsellor looked defeated.

I thought that girl was stupid, but I was just as stupid. The counsellor went on to say you could never trust anyone with private photos, not even your boyfriend. ‘What if he shares the photo with his friends and they share it with their friends. Before long all your peers have seen it.’ My boyfriend isn’t like that.

I didn’t shout out, but I still thought it.

I was worse than Madison. At least she knew she couldn’t trust people.

He’d tell me I was beautiful, say I could be a model. When I saw my body captured in that grainy, dim light I thought it looked pretty good too. It 98

wasn’t like the times I’d seen myself naked in the bathroom mirror under harsh fluorescence, so I let him take another.

‘You’re sexy as hell.’ And another. When we were apart I started sending him photos of myself. Curled up in bed or fresh out of the shower, wet hair stuck to my chest. It was special, something I could share with just him.

Turns out my boyfriend wasn’t an arsehole, he was just an idiot. He kept all our private photos on his phone, and left it laying around without a passcode. It didn’t take long for a few of his friends to find pictures of me. They sent them to their phones, laughed over them and shared them around.

I didn’t find out until one of the photos was posted on Facebook. I was mindlessly scrolling down my newsfeed when I saw myself. There was a shitty, Microsoft Paint scribble covering anything that might violate Facebook’s privacy terms. Suddenly my intimate moment was harsh and unforgiving, like the lighting in the bathroom. I remembered taking the photo. I remembered thinking I looked good, grown up. Somehow, in this context, I couldn’t stand to look at it. It had already been shared so many times. The numbers went up and up before I could register what was happening.

THANK GOD FOR CAMERA PHONES AND STUPID SLUTS! I tried not to read these comments and I’ve tried to forget the ones I read by accident. It tore me down until I was nothing but a cautionary tale. Guidance counsellors will cite my story for years, trying to teach kids like me. They won’t listen.

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Bored

TRAVIS DEVER

No school today. You’re home sick.

Mum said no video games, so you have to go outside. It’s because you’re inside all the time that you’re sick. You need the sun on your skin.

‘Put your shoes on. They’re outside,’ she calls, her hands in the sink wrestling the suds with a sponge. Plates clank together as they’re plonked into the water.

They’re too tight to put on and you can never get the laces to stay tied up the way Dad showed you. Too stubborn to ask for help, a moment of genius strikes you to tie them around your ankle. It doesn’t look right, but your shoes aren’t falling off your feet. So clever. They should give you a prize.

Now they’re scuffing in the grass.

Now they’re squeaking. You prefer the morning dew on the grass as it gets between your toes as you gallop across the yard between the verandah and the garden. But you're wearing shoes.

Your heart sinks.

You hate shoes.

Mum’s not watching. You step on the heel of one and it slips off your foot.

Next, the other shoe.

The laces don’t work. Nothing wrong with how you tied them.

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Kicking the bleached leather shackles over to the buttress roots of the old tree, you spot the oversized cardboard box which came with Mum’s new armchair. It’s folded up and leaning against the tree. Why is it out here?

Mum’s not watching.

It’s yours now.

Your claws snatch at it to drag it onto the grass. Your cardboard prize drags in the dirt and threatens to pull you back to the tree.

It’s heavy. You kick at the bottom to get it over the buttress.

It’s moving. Your toes hurt.

The cardboard box flops onto the ground with a thud from a gust of wind.

Leaning over it, your fingers trace the corrugated cardboard that it’s made of, between the two other sheets. It’s rough and not well cut; the tape is still on it.

You pick at the tape with your fingernail.

The tape’s tidier than your nail.

Unfolding the box is the easy bit: just slide your fingers between the folded parts and lift.

Now it’s a tall diamond in the grass, and it’s just under your elbows.

Now’s the tricky bit. Reckon you should’ve got in before unfolding it?

Nah.

Make sure not to cut your feet off when you close the bottom bits of the box. Smells like paper. The old magpie is somewhere nearby, her call just echoed in the box. It’s not the comfiest, but it’s cool.

Should’ve pinched one of Dad’s pillows.

Not much else to do, now. You want your video games.

Is it lunchtime yet?

No.

What if…

What if the box started sinking into the grass?

You’re sinking.

Wait…

Now the box is sailing through the grass. The grass tickles your fingers as you hurtle past.

You like this boat.

It’s yours now.

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Numb AMY BAILEY May slumps on the bed, legs aching— even hours sitting at a desk will do that.

Slaving away with some bald-headed middle management over your shoulder, making other people richer. They are rolling in money, and yet they can’t even get the air-con fixed. The sad whine it makes every time the fan turns is the soundtrack to the ‘this is not your life’ serial that runs every day.

Tightness in May’s wrist feels like someone twanging on the nerves.

RSI is flaring up again from all this technology—iMacs and iPhones and iPads and iPods and iDontknowwhatnext.

What do people say about it? We are becoming a disengaged age. An era of narcissists with our Facebooking and Twittering and Instagraming. I guess sometimes you just want to be heard, or seen. It’s becoming so hard to get people to care.

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The tea tastes metallic and coats the tongue, the flavour lingering in the back of the throat; it’s organic, hand-picked in India by ‘farmers’ and certainly not by children with shirts tied around their heads to soak up the sweat that beads on their brows under the glaring hot sun. It’s made with tap water. That is what the weird taste is from—all the chemicals and additives makes for dirty water. The stuff bought from the store is much better.

The glare from the TV casts waves of undulating blue light across May’s legs, the skin soaking in electric rays. The image of her lounging body superimposed over explosions on the reflective screen. A war in some other country, some different country, some distant country. Death becomes a number, the red-nailed blonde presenter says the numbers quickly. They spill from the mouth, but do not have time to

pool before they are covered and carried away with other words. The next words.

Terrorists. Human shields. Women and children as human shields. Religious wars and Muslim terrorists and wars against terror and terror against Muslims. Such violence and another number, a number that grows and ceases to be anything more. It belongs to another country, a different country, a distant country. The button on the remote is pressed and the TV morphs. Game of Thrones is on.

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Wilson and Me Sometimes life sucks. It really does. Some people get royally screwed over by fate or whatever. They watch the world, yearning for a piece of its gold. Like a dog begging for a crumb off a plate. They want some, just a morsel—but it’s not for them. Someone, somewhere, decided that there would be diamonds and there would be waste. And you my friend, were the waste.

However, every so often, a bloody miracle happens.

Every so often the loser wins.

But I gotta start at the beginning don’t I? This is, after all, your story and not mine.

Wilson. Tired, wheezing, breakable, Wilson. Pale skin huggin’ brittle bones.

A kid trapped in a geriatric’s body. Your condition constricted you like a straightjacket in a loony bin. Dumped in a chair, drooling like a toddler,

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babysat by a television. You remember, don’t ya, when I found you sittin’ in your own piss? Those good-for-nothing nurses were treating ya bad.

Disgusting place it was. Worse than those stories on 60 Minutes, that’s for bloody sure.

I said to myself, what a hand this kid has been dealt. What a waste. You

looked about fourteen—but you weren’t out there playing and livin’ like a fourteen-year-old should. Might as well been dead. Almost put ya out of your misery there and then.

But you looked up at me, remember? I saw those pale, blue, knowing eyes

and there was somethin’ in them. A bit of fire. Kindling, waiting for a match.

It was your lucky day kid, cause don’t ya know it, I’m a bloody firecracker.

‘Can you talk?’ I ask you and you stammer out a yes. ‘Don’t hurt ya self there, kid.’ I’m sorry I was such a smartarse. Never really knew no better. You remember what my dad was like that one time I took ya to see him. If Hitler and Mussolini had a love child, it would have been my old man. Real piece of work. Not worth the pile of wood he was buried in, and that’s the truth.

So, I sit down beside ya, and I introduce myself. I ask, ‘What’s ya name kid?’ After nearly five minutes, I finally get me answer. Wilson Kent.

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‘Kent, like in Superman,’ I say. You liked that and I see some more of that fire burn in your cheeks.

‘So, you like Clark Kent, huh? Ya read the comics, or is it the movies you’re into?’ Well, you remember how it goes. Was the longest and the shortest conversation of me life. You love comics. Reading was somethin’ you were real good at, but those lousy nurses could hardly be arsed to bring you anything.

Comics were light, and you could hide them under your pillow. Ya gran had given you a torch last Christmas. When the batteries died, you started nicking them from the TV remote in the rec room. Smart little bugger.

I ask what’s your favourite comic. You say you like Superman, ‘cause ya got the same name, but Wolverine holds ya number one spot. That surprises me. Frail kid like you, into the big gun, the mutant. Then you smile this real knowin’ smile.

‘The mutants. Nobody understood them. People only saw what was on the outside. Sometimes, Wolverine hurt people by accident ‘cause he didn’t know his own strength.’ You don’t stammer that bit. Almost fell off my chair.

‘Who could you ever hurt kid? Even without your condition, I can tell you wouldn’t harm anyone. You’re made of the good stuff. Ya just gotta look real close to see it.’ You won’t say no more and as curious as ya got me, I let it be.

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Well, the nurse came along shortly after. The big hairy one that reeked of fags and had a moustache thicker than me armpits. She told me visiting hours were up. I said, ‘Good, now you can get off ya fat arse and help Wilson here out of his piss.’ The look she gave me confirmed a thought I’d already been havin’—Mussolini and Hitler also had a bloody daughter.

That was the beginning of us, Wilson. I started comin’ round every Tuesday. Best part of my week, I don’t mind tellin’ ya. We’d just sit and talk, as best ya could, given the circumstances. I’d bring you comics and the odd novel I got my hands on.

We got ourselves into a nice little routine. Like two old fellas, shooting the breeze at the bowls club. All we needed was a tinny each, ‘cept I’m lousy with the booze, as you well know. Plus, wouldn’t be too responsible of me givin’ liquor to a kid.

We were good, you and me. I was your firecracker, the spark bringin’ ya back to life. Now, I know I’m taking liberties in sayin’ that, but it’s the honest truth. And I think we could have been quite happy just staying that way till one of us kicked the bucket. But you went and got sick, didn’t ya. Real sick.

I walked in that day with my usual swagger. Nurses barely cast an eyeball in my direction. They’d been treating you a whole lot better since I’d been 110

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comin’ ‘round. I’d find ya clean and propped up with a couple of cushions, even sittin’ by a window if they were feelin’ generous.

But I went to our spot and you weren’t there.

‘Oi, Mildred,’ I said, ‘Where ya hidin’ Wilson? Ya haven’t left him all day in his bloody room have ya?’ Mildred looked at me, like I just took a crap in her handbag, and said: ‘He’s with the doctor ...’

‘Well, how long’s he gonna be?’ I asked her.

‘A while.’ Real peach, that Mildred.

So, I go lookin’ for ya as if I don’t have anything better to do than rescue your skinny arse. And you’re in ya bed, and there’s a drip in your arm and a monitor on your chest. It was beepin’ away, real chirpy like. ‘Cept was nothin’ chirpy about how you looked. Paler than a ghost and wheezin’ like you smoked a pack a day.

‘What the bloody hell is wrong with him, Doc?’ I asked. It’s important to say that Doc is a pretty decent bloke. He treated you good, Wilson, and was like a breath of less-stale air in that place. Well, he looked me right square in the eye, and said: ‘Wilson is dying.’

Just like that. Your organs were shuttin’ down, on account of your

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condition. They could make you comfortable by dopin’ you up on morphine, but that was all.

‘It’s not good enough, Doc!’ I shouted. ‘He’s just a bloody kid. Hasn’t lived a day of his pitiful life.’ He didn’t know what to say. He was sorry. You had a few months, six at best.

I felt like I’d been kicked in the guts. And there you were, just sleepin’, real peaceful like. That made me mad. You looked like you’d already given up. Like you were just layin’ there, waitin’ for the angels to carry you away. I shook you as hard as I could. ‘Wake up, kid. Don’t you bloody well leave me here in this shithole. You hear me in there? Fight, Wilson, fight real hard.’

Ya know, anywhere else, the sight of an old-timer shakin’ a skinny little sick kid on his death bed mighta warranted a bit of attention. But not here. I just carried on shakin’ ya until my arms started to hurt and my chest wheezed almost as loudly as yours.

You opened your eyes and looked at me. You smiled at me like I was the best thing ya ever seen. Doped up bugger you were, I had to laugh at that.

‘You hurtin’ kid?’ I asked.

‘Nah, I feel real good,’ ya said.

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‘Well, I bloody don’t. This can’t be it for you, Wilson. They can’t just throw you away like trash.’ Somethin’ flashed in your eyes then, somethin’ you’re always trying to hide. Hope. Longing.

‘I want to do some stuff,’ you said, ‘I want to go outside, climb a mountain, eat a burger, kiss a girl, drink a beer, ride a bike.’ You blurted it all out, listing those ordinary things like they were the hardest challenges in the world. And for you, they were.

Then, you damn near broke my old heart.

‘Will you help me do that stuff? I want to be normal, just for a little while.’

I couldn’t ever say no to you, kid. I wouldn’t want to.

Our first challenge was springin’ ya from the joint. The staff were fools, but even they’d notice a kid on Death’s door missing from his bed. You had the idea to pull an old ‘switcheroo’ on them. We got Felix from his bed next door, I had to do all the work and it just about killed me. Old fartin’ Felix, sleepin’ like a baby as I hauled his geriatric arse into your bed. We tucked him in, nice and snug. Then, I had to take the drip out of your arm. If Felix didn’t kill me, that was gonna do it for sure. I hate needles. And blood. I started sweating and really did consider doin’ a runner. But you put your hand over

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mine and told me to hurry up. Such a confident little bastard. I counted to three, and ripped it out.

It was my genius idea to dress ya in some of my clothes. Made ya look nice and old. I put you in your wheelchair and off we set. Had to take the back corridors to avoid detection. We were real stealth like, you and me. Got a case of the giggles once we were out of sight, though. Bloody morphine.

I heard someone yell behind us. I put me head down and ran like we were being chased by a mob of cows. As we rounded the corner heading for the back door, the chair got snagged and out you flew. Sailing through the air, real majestically, except for the look of pure outrage written all over ya face.

I would have laughed, if I had any air left in me lungs. I scooped you up and threw you back into your bloody wheelchair, bursting through them doors like a couple of convicts fleeing Alcatraz. We had done it. Freedom never tasted so damn good.

I took ya to my place, got you a cuppa, and put you to bed. You were shivering a bit. I don’t think your body was doing too good. I fell asleep beside ya on my chair. When I woke up, you were staring at me.

‘You have somethin’ on your mind, kid?’ I asked.

‘I want you to write about me,’ you said, ‘I want there to be a record of 114

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me, existing, living. Like a comic.’

‘Like a comic? Kid, I ain’t much chop with words, ya know that.’

‘I don’t mind,’ you said, ‘Do your best. But just don’t write my lines in a stutter, okay. I want to sound whole. Normal.’

‘What should I write about?’ You started talkin’ like you hadn’t ever talked before.

Your mum was a lovin’ and kind woman. The doctors had tried to make her abort you, on account of your condition. But she’d fought like a she-wolf protectin’ her cub. She’d always been patient with you, taught you to read and write, though others told her not to bother. She’d told you to dream big and not to let anyone tell you otherwise. I said she sounded real decent.

She had died two years ago. Suddenly, from a brain tumour. You blamed yourself. You think looking after you made her sick. If you hadn’t of been a ‘mutant’, if you’d just been normal, she’d still be alive. I tell ya that’s the biggest pile of dung I’ve ever heard and ya mum would’a agreed with me. You smile.

‘Please don’t interrupt,’ you said.

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Your gran was the only relative that’d take ya in. But after a few months, the courts ruled that she wasn’t much stronger than you, and no good to take care of ya. That’s when you’d been put in the home. Surrounded by old folks and kids no better off than you were.

You hated being trapped there. Then, one day, you saw a cranky old bloke wandering ‘round, playin’ cards with his friends. You caught his eye and he came and sat by you. He was a real charmer, and he became your best friend.

You went real mushy on me there, kid, wasn’t expectin’ it.

‘That story is too damn short. We got to add to it,’ I said.

I got ya dressed as warm as I could. You looked like a Michelin man in all those layers. Your lips had gone a little blue, and I started to think maybe we should be headin’ back.

‘No.’ You didn’t stutter that time. You had this real determined look like I’d never seen. ‘Okay kid,’ I said.

I took ya for a burger at the best joint I knew. We turned a few heads, you and me. ‘What are you lookin’ at?’ I growled at some old broad. ‘We’re in love, what’s it to ya?’ That put a smile on your face. I couldn’t take ya up a 116

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mountain, I was real sorry about that. But I took ya to a park near my place.

There was a duck pond and lots of kids mucking around with scooters, kites and balls. Your face. If only I’d had a camera. It was like you were meeting Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and Mick Jagger all at once. You told me you hadn’t been to the park since ya mum died.

As we were feeding the ducks, I noticed some girls nearby.

‘Stay here,’ I said. I went over to them. They looked at me like I was about to mug ‘em. I spoke to the nicest lookin’ one. ‘You want to make twenty bucks, girly?’

‘Excuse me?’ she said, lookin’ at me like I was about to throw open my coat and give her a peep at me privates. ‘See that boy over there in the wheelchair? You give him a kiss on the lips, and I’ll pay you twenty bucks.’

‘I’ll do it,’ one of the others piped up. I grinned like a damn fool and brought her over to you. I thought you were gonna die right there on me. You sure milked it for what it was worth, ya sly little bugger. Best twenty bucks I ever spent.

After that, my nerves got the better of me, and I took ya back to the hospital. You weren’t doing too good, and I didn’t think I could take it if ya

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died in me arms or somethin’ real dramatic like that.

As you know, we got in a real mess back at the home. Everyone was shoutin’ and the cops were there. You were put right back in ya bed, and hooked up to the drip and monitors. As much as I hated seein’ ya trapped again, I felt relieved that you were in safe hands. I was ‘escorted’ out, handcuffs and all. But, wouldn’t ya know it, Doc bailed me out. Real decent fella, Doc. We all know how these stories end. Poor little guy bites the dust. Universe has one less piece of waste to crap all over. Life goes on.

Ah, but I told ya there was a miracle, didn’t I? The day I walked back into the home, after two months banishment, I get the shock of me life. Almost croak it, I swear. There you are, Wilson, sittin’ in ya chair, by the window, readin’ your comics. You got this real smug look on ya face. Chuffed with ya’self. And I see that fire, lit in ya eyes.

Doctors say you’re pullin’ through. Got years left in ya. Luckiest little bugger I’ve ever met.

So, for now, we say: ‘Screw you, universe. The losers won.’

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“.

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of Weird Little Marks

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MICHAEL HIGGINS

!

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! ” “? ‘. ? ... ! ,& !In Defence

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I meant to begin this essay with a quote about writing. It’s one that stands out in my mind because I can actually remember it, unlike most things, and because I’ve tried to follow its advice ever since I read it. I even wrote it down last week, word-for-word from memory, before I wrote anything else, because I was so sure of it. I meant to begin with this quote, until out of curiosity, I opened the book it came from and found that it wasn’t there. The quote, or rather what I imagined it to be (I shall adorn it with marks anyhow), is this:

‘Words are spoken.’

It might seem simple, and it is. It might seem hardly profound, or irrelevant, or just wrong. So might the sentence ‘I am’, I would point out, and yet it’s about the truest thing in the world we can say. So it’s along those lines that I like to think my misremembered quote is something akin to what Moses heard from the burning bush, which was, ‘I am.’ Then again in a later place, ‘Before Abraham was, I am.’ Whether Moses imagined what he heard, as I did, is another matter: I only mean that the verb to be is alike. In both it implies a sort of transcendence.

‘Words are spoken.’ I fancy the voice said, ‘Words speak. Before there were signs to form them, words speak, and before there were tongues to carry them, they were a small voice latent in the mind. After they are dead, drowned in ink and written down, words speak.’

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With that said, I shouldn’t try to imbue my quote with some air of divine inspiration it evidently doesn’t deserve. If there were any at all it would have gone like this:

‘Who are you?’ I asked.

‘I am the Ghost of false memory—the God of your first kiss, the God of your happy childhood, and the God of the vision of your bright future. I am not.’

And I hid my face.

‘Okay, the childhood was a joke; it was happy. But seriously, take off your sandals because they’re far too big for you.’

The book I had opened was What a Word! by A. P. Herbert. What he actually wrote, to my horror, was that words are made to be spoken, and a lot of stuff to do with treating one’s writing as if it was said out loud. A word which is too hard to say should not exist in the dictionary, for example. This of course is good advice, and probably an essay discussing these quotes, which I have paraphrased here, would be more sensible (though less legal since I am not allowed to quote them). The thing is, I’d started planning this essay with a different quote in mind, and half the content was banking on that transcendent verb. They’re very similar, but there’s a difference between are 122

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made to be and are. While both yield the same rule of thumb for writing, both do not permit writing to contain words in its own right. I had been thinking rather, that a word which cannot be spoken, does not exist at all. So I’ll carry on as planned and content myself with two hopes. Or limp on with two crutches, if you like. First, though it may be less sensible, such an essay might have a chance at being more interesting. And second, in one now-decayed draft of his book, or on some breath dispersed by the wind of many decades, A. P. Herbert really did say ‘Words are spoken.’ I’m not making things up.

If words are spoken, full stop, then what about writing, which appears quite plainly, to be written? I think the answer is also plain, and something we know intuitively. I’ll put it here first—they are spoken by the voice in your head when you read—and then paint some background. Language began in a meaningful sense between two people, when the first word was spoken and when that first word was understood. It’s fun to imagine what such a word might have been, by the way; that’s if we project a hypothetical, anachronistic English shape onto it, of course. Maybe it was ‘fire’. Anyhow, the spoken word is the apex of language, which is the most accurate image I can think of. It wasn’t the first form, nor the most developed, but it is the highest. At the foot of the mountain, a very long time ago, there were probably things like rituals.

These would have been of many wonderful colours, though all performed for more or less the same vague reason: a sense of community, of shared consciousness. Consciousness, I believe, would be a very frightening thing to be alone with. So think of children playing ‘Ring Around the Rosie’, except without the words. And think of Jack and Jill, except they haven’t a notion yet

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about the pail of water. Thus, our ancestors went with hands held, following only the next steps in the ritual, humming and dancing up the mountainside.

There on the peak was the word, the thing that was the unknown object of all their tunes and the destination of their rhythms. It was, at last, the form sufficient to express the human condition. That’s where language began in a meaningful sense. Down the far side of the mountain is writing. Of course none of these forms of language are greater or lesser than one another. They have each their own advantages, which I do not need to reiterate here. But one is definitely higher. I don’t know how else to put that. The spoken word, I suppose, is the perfect form of language simply because it’s the most human.

Ritual points toward it and writing refers back to it, like two mountain slopes meeting at an apex. Naturally, this is all just speculation; we cannot know exactly how it happened because it’s too long ago, nor can we even know what a word really is regardless. Language is too big to contemplate. It is so big we can never get outside it to see what it looks like. We’re so far within language that we’ve become fish saying, ‘What the heck is water?’

Back to the point. Writing is the descendant of the spoken word. Writing is the spoken word caught in ink on paper, or encoded, if you like to be cryptic. It is no surprise then, that we decode writing by hearing it again.

What is this cage, or this code? It comes in general shapes: logographic, syllabic, alphabetic, and thousands of particulars under those headings.

Their methods differ; their purpose does not. The method may be to signify a meaning, or it may be to signify a sound. English employs the latter. Their purpose is to make words. Well, half-words to start with, before the reader 124

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comes into it. A word, roughly, according to linguistics, is both a meaning and a sound. Writing systems tend to encode only either one half or the other.

What then happens, so far as I can observe of my own reading, is that a reader simultaneously supplies the missing half and privately narrates the result. The reader turns the writing into words. It’s difficult—impossible even—to imagine an isolated meaning, or an isolated sound. I honestly spent hours trying to think of examples, but I didn’t get far. They seem to be mutually inextricable, if that makes sense. Perhaps they are too much like the soul and the body, whom only Death knows how to separate, to which knowledge of, we among the living and the reading remain ignorant. I can only think of the marriage of the two as a whole person, or a whole word. A phrase that exemplifies this dilemma is: ‘The Wind in the Willows.’ It is somehow extremely meaningful and euphonious for me and I get the feeling that the wind is like the meaning of a word, and the willows like its sound. However, I find I am unable to fully analyse the role of one from the other. To take up the thread again, I think this is what we mean when we talk about a voice. Reading is a lot like listening to someone else speak, except the speaker’s voice is our own. In being encoded, the word necessarily loses its voice, like freeze-dried coffee. You can’t drink it without adding water. Likewise, writing is not language until you rehydrate it with a voice. You could say reading is the act of voicing the dead, to borrow Gary’s phrase. So that, I suppose, is how words are spoken: they’re not words at all unless they are spoken. Writing, divorced from the voice of the reader, is just a lot of unimaginable constituents.

The essay so far was mostly meant to lead up to something Cormac McCarthy

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said about punctuation; but I think I’ve spent too much space doing so and explained only, if anything, the reason that books don’t stand up and talk for themselves. So I’ll try to be more punctual. What he said was:

Something I cannot quote directly so as not to infringe somebody’s copyright. However, the gist of it was that he regards punctuation marks with contempt because they are weird-looking and do little except blot up the page. It’s really a shame I’ve had to compromise with such a paraphrase because his own words were much better. I’m sorry. I shall risk adding that he also derisively used the adjective ‘little’.

I appreciate McCarthy’s sentiment, but I feel it is my duty to point out to him (presuming he never reads this) that the page is already full of weird little marks. They’re the words; or rather, the representations of words, since words are spoken. I have that on dubious authority.

Now, punctuation marks are of course not the same as word marks; that’s why we commonly distinguish punctuation from grammar. However, they are perfectly alike in that they seek to represent speech. Speech, as we all know, involves an endless variation of sound and consequently of meaning.

It is fraught with pauses (,) and longer pauses (.) and rising levels of pitch (?) and rising loudness (!) and (—) I like these ones (—) interruptions.

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The word ‘weird’ as McCarthy used it, deserves inspection. So far as I can see, it could mean two things. Firstly, that punctuation marks are weird because they’re ambiguous; they’re much less standardised than spelling, so they really appear foreign or weird to us. While a thousand writers might agree on how to spell ‘semi-colon’, none of them might agree on what an actual semi-colon stands for. Punctuation tends to become slightly hieroglyphic because it has only a shaky foothold on the great cornerstone of language: convention.

Secondly, that punctuation is weird because it’s aesthetically inconsistent.

Written words—scripts—take on their own kind of beauty after a while, but punctuation marks just don’t look right in their midst. They seem to belong to mathematics and other sciences, and have been transplanted awkwardly onto writing. This is probably why calligraphy minimises or hides punctuation marks. The classical painters and sculptors did the same thing with genitalia when they represented the human form. I suspect what McCarthy meant was a bit of both ‘weirds’, so I will frame my defence accordingly.

Let me first say that a defence is warranted by an attack, but I hardly think what Cormac McCarthy said about punctuation counts as an attack. He was merely responding to what someone asked him about his writing. He’s not crusading to reform English in some way or another, as far as I know. So all this is more like a training drill with a wooden sword. McCarthy’s statement just provides a good imaginary opponent. Now as I said, I appreciate his sentiment. The two strains of weirdness I outlined above are both fine reasons against using punctuation. Well, against anything more than the barest comma and full stop, which McCarthy still believes in. But I cannot agree

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with the sentiment on the whole. If words are spoken, these concerns about ambiguity and aesthetics are secondary. If words are spoken, writing serves but one master. Everything about writing, every little mark on the page, has for its purpose the encoding of the spoken word. Whether the mark is of grammar or of punctuation, I find only one answer that is worthy to judge it by, and therefore only this question to ask it; how do you help the writing to speak? It is parallel to the question the storyteller asks of her characters, setting, events, details—in fact, everything in her story. How does this serve the plot? All else is subordinate to that dialogue. Are you often unclear? Are you ugly? These things don’t matter; we are beggars here in the business of being understood, and you, punctuation mark, help writing to speak in a way that no other mark can. Such an answer no doubt depends somewhat on the writer’s skill, and if I had half so much as Mr McCarthy, it might be different.

But for now, for example, if I wished to convey a sense of joy and relief after a pretty boring labour (unevenly rationed on the reader’s end), along with a momentary disbelief at the fortune thereof, I would have to resort to writing:

The end? At last!

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Sister Slow and heavy blinks dragged Olivia to consciousness each morning. She’d curl her hands back, rubbing her little wrists into her eye sockets when I woke her up for school. She’d totter out to the kitchen with her eyes half closed, her hair still half up in yesterday’s ponytail; one sock traipsing behind her only half on her foot.

I didn’t drift gently in and out of sleep anymore. My eyes would snap open

every morning. I’d started going up to the rooftop of our building when I woke up early, to let Liv sleep for a little while longer.

It was winter, and I was leaning over the ledge of the roof terrace, listening

to the industrial purr of the building’s air conditioning system. It was working overtime to keep the apartments warm. I’d pulled the sleeves of my jumper out of my coat, covering my hands to keep them from freezing, and to stop me biting my nails bloody. My mum would make me sleep with socks on my hands when I was little to stop me from doing it in my sleep.

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Melbourne in winter is cold and bitter. The air was icy; I could feel my eyes

watering. It had been just over a year since I’d moved us here. We got rid of most of my parent’s furniture. Our apartment was tiny compared to our family home; the place where Liv had taken her first steps across the shiny floorboards, with their high gloss veneer.

We moved right after Liv was officially put into my custody. My father’s brother had been appointed to oversee the proceedings of the will. He hardly knew me. I hadn’t seen him in years. In the end it was his decision and he decided I was very capable of taking care of Olivia. At the time, I wasn’t so sure myself. Aunts and uncles and family friends, who seemed vaguely familiar, flocked when they heard the news, each one expressing their willingness to adopt an orphaned five-year-old.

My mother’s sister, Aunt Lo—short for Loretta—was the first in line. I didn’t see her much outside of family Christmas; I didn’t see any of my family much outside of special occasions. Lo had blonde hair, just like my mother and sister, except hers was straight, like mine, and she’d cut it very short. She’d smelt of breast milk and dull, floral perfume as long as I could remember. Maternal and comforting.

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‘Now, I know a few of the others have offered to take her,’ she said. ‘But I’ve been speaking to your uncle. I’ve got a spare bedroom and I think it’ll be nice for Olivia, being around her cousins. Other children. It makes sense.’

‘I thought …’

‘Oh, hun,’ Lo gave a sympathetic look. She reached out and squeezed my shoulder. ‘I know. And I’d love to have you too. But I’ve got three of my own to think about. There just isn’t room.’

‘No, that’s fine, I just mean …’

‘I moved out of home at nineteen, you’ll be fine. You’re a smart young woman.’

‘I just think Liv and I should stay together.’

‘I know you do. And believe me, if I had the space I’d …’

‘No. I mean I was kind of thinking that when I found my own place,’ I was picking at a loose thread on my sleeve, ‘that Liv would come with me.’ Lo didn’t say anything at first, she just smiled.

‘You’re a sweetheart, Margo. But I don’t think you understand what a big responsibility that would be.’

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I hated that. Everyone had treated me like a child throughout this whole thing. The police didn’t call me after the accident. They phoned my grandmother first, asking her to break the news to the deceased’s ‘children’.

‘I already asked my parent’s lawyer …’ I stopped myself. My parents are dead. Dead people don’t have lawyers. ‘My lawyer, I mean. He says I’m a good candidate. I’m an adult and with the money my parents left us I’ll be able to support her.’

‘Well,’ Lo was suddenly less maternal and comforting, ‘I guess that’s up to your uncle then, isn’t it.’

At first it felt like a naïve, sentimental side effect of grief, but I just wanted us to stay together. I came to realize my sister was my responsibility.

Headstones always say things like, ‘beloved Mother, Father, wife, son, sister and friend’. My parent’s do anyway. I visited them just recently. In the end, your life is defined by your relationships. I knew the day we buried my parents that Liv and I had to stay together. Whether I was ‘capable’ or not, I’d work it out. Because when you die all that matters is what you were to other people. How could I die with ‘sister’ written on my grave if I had failed this

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one truly quintessential test of our sisterhood?

My uncle told me later that he chose me because of something he noticed the day of the funeral: the messy braid hanging down Liv’s back. My sister’s hair was in a continuous state of tangles; our mother had always fought it into a neat braid on special occasions. The kind of occasions my uncle was likely to actually have seen us. Christmases. Weddings. Funerals. I hadn’t braided my own hair in years, but I tried my best that morning. The weekend of the funeral our big, family home was transformed into some sort of bed and breakfast for all those relatives I didn’t recognize. Through a bedroom door left slightly ajar, my uncle had seen me with a puffy-eyed Olivia on my lap, trying to remember how to French braid.

I hadn’t even noticed him standing there.

It didn’t rain the day of the funeral, but it looked like it had. The air was wet and drops of water formed on the flower petals of the bouquets people brought for my parents.

‘Tulips were always her favourite,’ a woman told me as she handed over

the flowers. Bloodshot eyes searched my face. ‘You look just like her when she

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was your age.’ She stifled a sob and walked away. I didn’t know my mother had liked tulips, and I didn’t know who that woman was.

As they were being lowered into the ground I thought about my parents

inside those boxes, how can you not? There had been talk the day before on what they should be dressed in. Grandma picked out our mothers favourite dress, and a nice shirt and tie for my father. I guess I remember him best in a shirt and tie. I couldn’t help thinking I’d want to be buried in my pyjamas. My train of thought was broken when I heard Liv. She didn’t cry. She’d gotten all her crying out the days leading up to the funeral. She just whispered, Goodbye Mumma, Goodbye Daddy.

It was cold and grey, and everyone wore black coats and huddled under

black umbrellas. It was so dull even the bright colour of the tulips seemed to be drowned out, faded. Like someone had taken down the saturation on a photograph. Everyone had pinched pink cheeks from the bitter cold and as they talked, plumes of frosted breath were visible in front of them.

I was so worried about Liv being warm enough that I’d forgotten my scarf.

I was rubbing my hands together and warming them with my breath when Liv tugged on my coat. I looked down as she was holding her little hands up towards me. I rubbed her icy fingers in between mine and blew warm air into 136

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them.

‘Keep your hands in your pockets and they’ll stay warm,’ I said and pulled

her knitted hat down over her ears. She gave me a soft smile. The first since the accident. I think she knew then that she would be okay with me; that somehow my keeping her warm signified that she would be looked after. I hoped she was right. But just because I can keep her from getting frostbitten fingers or catching pneumonia doesn’t mean I’ll always know what to do.

That’s not the kind of thing you can explain to a five-year-old.

At the wake, people that I didn’t know told stories about my parents, of whom, I’d begun to think I didn’t know all that much about either. The woman with the tulips got up and told the story of how my parents had met and fallen in love. They’d never told me that story, and I suppose I never asked. Lots of kids assume their parents are in love, I hadn’t thought much about it before that day. But I guess I’m happy for them, they found love in their relatively short lives.

The will was finalised a few days after the funeral. I waited silently in the lawyer’s office with my grandmother, Aunt Lo and some of my other family.

I sat on my hands to keep myself from fidgeting with the hem of my skirt.

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My uncle was in another room with the lawyer, giving his verdict. Everyone wanted to be sure Liv was in safe hands, preferably their own. Maybe they doubted my ability to take care of her myself. Or maybe they just wanted something to remember my parents by. That’s what it was for Aunt Lo; my sister is a spitting image of our mother. Lo was twelve when my mum was born. She was too old to play with baby dolls anymore but old enough to carry her little sister around of her hip wherever she went. Grandma says she’d always known Loretta had maternal instincts. At five she would lift up her shirt to breastfeed her dolls. At thirteen she was changing nappies and mixing up baby formula. Lo had never been a child; she’d always been a mother. I’d seen her speaking to my uncle in the waiting room that morning. She’d pulled him aside and spoke so quietly I couldn’t overhear. Lo would have taken care of Liv, I’ve never doubted that. She might have even done a better job than me.

But Liv didn’t need a new mother; she already had a sister.

The lawyer returned to the room with my uncle. He sat across from me

and when I looked up at him he winked. I could have cried, but the last thing I wanted to seem like at that moment was a child. The lawyer used some roundabout, legal jargon to break the news to everyone else. Lo was the first to stand up and walk out. I got a whiff of milk and flowers as she passed me. My

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grandmother closed her eyes when the lawyer said my name. At first I thought she was disappointed, but I think she was relieved.

On the way home that day my uncle promised he’d help us find somewhere to live … Your parents owned that house, but it’s way too big for just the two of you. You’ll be able to afford something small after you sell. There are some townhouses just up the road from Olivia’s school. They’re for rent mostly, but …

His words drowned out into white noise. I had something else on my mind, a memory. Something from a few years back. Liv was probably too little to remember. Our parents took us on a day trip into Melbourne city during the school holidays. We walked around and went to the aquarium, and a street magician made a playing card appear in my pocket. My dad bought us each a flower at the markets. It was just a good day. A polite stranger took our photo in front of the river on a disposable camera. It came out slightly overexposed and blue-toned. I put it in a frame and hung it up in our new home the day we moved in.

My uncle did help me find our apartment. It was small, but it was perfect for us. It had exposed brick walls and a tiny balcony with a few dead plants left behind by previous tenants.

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I checked my watch. It was almost time to wake Liv up for school.

She had slept in my room the night before. She often did. When I went to wake Liv, she was curled up right where I’d left her. A little foot was poking out from under the heavy doona she’d pulled up to her nose, revealing only her eyes and a tuft of knotted, ashy blonde curls. I’d lost my blonde hair; it’d darkened to a mousy brown as I got older. It was long and flat and straight.

Not like Liv, her messy curls were always full of life. But that morning she was so still and soft she could have been a porcelain doll.

I knew she worried about me. She worried that I was lonely, or sad. She was frighteningly intelligent for her age. Maybe it’s because she cut her teeth on grief before she started primary school. In a second, a drunk driver took away everything she understood about the world. She had to learn all over again, we both did.

I pulled back the curtains, letting sunlight flood into the room. She stirred in her sleep. I sat down beside her, pulled the blankets back and gently shook her awake. She blinked, slow and heavy.

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Silence is Golden VARIOUS AUTHORS

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What is the naughtiest thing your child has ever done?

May, 31, sends: Being startled awake is normal for me. Normally there’s a, ‘Mummy I want to play!’ or ‘Mummy I’m hungry!’ or, more recently, ‘Mummy I want to watch the Wiggles on the iPad!’ What’s not normal is waking to dead silence.

So, naturally I looked in the usual spots but they turned up empty. It was only when I heard the thud in the laundry that I found my two young children with the Costco-sized tub of laundry powder, the beach buckets and spades, making sand castles. Needless to say they both had a bath and timeouts for their antics.

Kyle, 26, sends: My three-year-old daughter loves to draw and paint for Daddy—I love her drawings, but what I don’t love is when she paints a picture of a horsey and a doggie on my white walls and white tiled floor. She was most distraught when I proceeded to clean them off.

Stacey, 40, sends: When she was little, my daughter would dress up her younger brother in her princess dresses and tutus to do his makeup. I have a collection of pictures of him in several dresses and ballerina outfits before my husband banned them from the house.

Dan, 20, sends: My son has an obsession with toothpaste and brushing his teeth. One afternoon while I was making dinner I heard a crash and him crying. I rushed 143

into the lounge room to see that my new sofa and glass coffee table had been smeared with toothpaste by little hands. The reason for the crash was because he had been up on the coffee table making footprints with the toothpaste on the glass. #Stilltryingtogetthestainsout!

Jenny, 42, sends: My son and daughter were playing upstairs with their cousins. On wooden floors you can hear every footstep but suddenly it was quiet. I walked upstairs to see if they were still alive and realised the place was empty. I headed out to the veranda and there they were climbing up from the back yard.

‘How did you get down?’ I demanded.

‘We all climbed and Travis jumped.’

Travis was the oldest and tallest. Thankfully none of them were hurt, so once I recovered from my heart attack, I dragged them inside and made them watch my boring ‘grown up’ shows (a.k.a. the news). They never did that again.

Maya, 35, sends: When I picked up my six-year-old daughter from school one day I saw that she had been crying. I asked what the matter was and she replied, ‘I’m not eating chicken again.’ Shocked, I asked her why.

‘Because the farmer said when the chickies grow up that they would be dinner.’

I assured her that we weren’t going to eat the baby chicks and didn’t think about the conversation again until a couple of weeks later while we were grocery shopping. We were in the deli department when she saw the hot chickens and started to scream and yell at the staff about 144

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killing chickens. I had to apologise profusely and explain the situation to them, which they thankfully understood, but it was one of the most embarrassing moments of my life. I now have to lie to get her to eat chicken! #Don’ttellherthatbuffalowingsarenotfrombuffalos.

Terri, 24, sends: My daughter has a habit of collecting rocks, not nice smooth ones with pretty colours, just bland old rocks from the side of the house, the beach or from the park. She likes to give them to people as presents. She’s really sneaky about it sometimes. She’ll slip them into my handbag, her dad’s brief case or someone’s back pocket. They’ve turned up all over the place. My least favourite place is in the washing machine when she’s forgotten to take them out of her own pockets, no matter how many times we tell her. I think she likes the banging sound they make when they go through the spin-cycle.

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What is the cutest moment that you have had with your child?

Sara, 28, sends: Cooking with my little girl is the funniest and cutest thing. She can’t talk properly yet and mispronounces the ingredients. My favourites include—fluer (flour), gregs (eggs), and sillyman (cinnamon). It’s so cute that I don’t want to correct her.

Addi, 50, sends: My four-year-old grandson has a bond with his older sister’s dolly, Mina.

He absolutely adores the baby! The pair play house really well together while wearing their mother and father’s clothing. The little tyke even steals a suitcase so he can go to ‘work’ while wearing his father’s shoes. When asked what they are doing he replies, ‘getting the bread and bacon.’

Sam, 43, sends: My mother tells me that when my twin and I were little we would argue on who would be the princess in the house. Well, now we’ve grown up he doesn’t like being called the princess anymore (he’s a red meat, sports junkie now!) #ThePrincess.

Kira, 24, sends: My two-year-old loves our pet cat, Sookie. She, on the other hand, barely tolerates him. Their one common interest is napping together, but she only likes to sleep in high and awkward positions. One time I found them clinging to the headrests of our sofa like two koalas. It was very cute.

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Ken, 46, sends: It was one of those typical nights, the world was calm and my wife and I were in front of the TV. After a while I realised I was hearing something else and hit mute. It was crying. My wife and I went upstairs to discover our eightyear-old son had been sobbing into his pillow for over an hour. When asked what happened, he said he’d had a dream of us dying and he was scared. We had to explain one of life’s inevitabilities that night and it was heartbreaking.

The very next day he was upstairs again, and he seemed to be writing something.

‘What’s that?’ I asked.

‘A story. I want to be a writer,’ he replied.

‘Why?’ I asked, and ever since that day I’ll always remember the sparkle in his eyes as he said, ‘Because one day people won’t be able to hear me anymore, and I want to tell them everything.’

Sarah, 38, sends: I caught my son sitting on the roof of the shed in our backyard one day.

He had climbed out there from the upstairs windows. I yelled at him to get down, but he refused and said he had to keep it clean. Why? He took his girlfriend up to the roof once to watch the sunset. It was another year before I admitted being proud of him that day.

Have you got any stories like this? Send them into Tali’s Tabloid and we will pay $100 cash for the story. If you get the Tabbie’s pick we will pay an extra $150.

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Coochin Creek MICHAEL HIGGINS

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The Landsborough-Beerwah Animal Shelter takes in sixty-five orphaned pets a year on average and it finds homes for more than sixty of those pets. That means it has an almost perfect rate of rehabilitation. Ninety percent or more, which is unheard of, yet this shelter is smaller, minimally funded and located further out of the way than any of its competitors on the Sunshine Coast.

Now, you might say competition is a strange way to describe the business of animal care. Well, you’d be right. The Landsborough-Beerwah Animal Shelter is indeed a strange place.

I found out about all this because I wanted to get a dog. And because I broke into the shelter’s filing cabinet after dark. I’ll get back to that. I wanted a dog I could take with me to the beach. Christmas was coming up, so I thought; what the hell, I’ve always wanted one, and we’re allowed to keep pets in the new apartment now. It’d be a great surprise for my sister too.

I would have gone to one of the more well-known animal shelters— RSPCA or Sippy Creek—but I happened to see an ad in a newspaper. It was a typical line-up of sad-faced dogs and cats, though curiously many of the blurbs for the dogs included a dislike for swimming. I suppose I noticed because I was sensitive to the fact. One of the photos (which must have been carelessly taken) half-showed a Kelpie in the background. I loved him at once 149

and knew I must meet him, so off I went. It was a nice drive, actually.

When I got to the Landsborough-Beerwah Animal Shelter I stood at the counter. A man sat behind it rifling through the till. I greeted him but he looked up only briefly and shouted, ‘Sally! Customer.’

I sat down to wait. The place was pretty tidy. One of the walls was well adorned with framed prizes; certificates with gold stars, medals with blue tassels and such. I didn’t think much of them at the time.

‘Sal! Ugh, give that bell a ring would ya,’ he said, vaguely pointing to a place barely beyond his reach on the counter. I stood again and hit the bell. A woman, apparently Sally, emerged from out the back.

‘Hi. Here to adopt a pet?’

‘Buy a pet,’ said the man.

‘Yes.’ I smiled. ‘I saw your ad. There was a particular dog in one of the pictures; only I don’t think he or she was the one featured. I mean, he was— or she was—sort of in the background.’

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‘Well, let’s go and have a look, shall we?’ She glanced at the man when she asked and he raised his eyebrows without really raising his eyebrows.

I followed her to the cages out the back. She was telling me about each of the dogs while we passed them, trying to sell them. Most I’d seen in the ads already, so I was looking ahead for my Kelpie. We stopped in front of a white Shih Tzu, or a ‘scrap of carpet’ as my dad called them.

‘This is Bianca. She’s just two years old, loves to be cuddled, and has her own hairbrush! Unfortunately, her family decided a dog wasn’t right for them.

We took her in early this year, shortly after Christmas …’ Sally’s face fell a little then.

‘I’m sure she’s lovely. Bianca doesn’t like to swim, though. In fact none of the dogs you advertised like to swim, why is that?’

I was still quite ignorant of what was going on in that place then, and I might have suspected sooner had I not spared Sally the trouble of answering that question. She wasn’t a very good liar. As it happened, I caught sight of a particular snout poking through a cage further along the hall.

‘There you are! What’s your name?’

‘That’s, um, he hasn’t got a name.’

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‘Well I’d like to buy him.’

‘That one’s not for sale,’ said the man. He had come up behind us.

‘Oh?’ I said.

‘Someone else already bought it.’

‘How come it’s still here?’

‘They’re waitin’ for Christmas to pick it up.’ A grin tugged at the edge of his mouth. ‘Why don’t you take one of the others? Sal, show him the others ones.’

Sally wore a look that said she already had and that I didn’t want any of them. For a moment they just stared at each other.

‘In that case, I’ll look elsewhere. Thanks for showing me around.’

I said goodbye to the Kelpie and began walking back to the foyer. I guess when it was clear I wasn’t changing my mind—my hand was turning the doorknob—the man spoke up.

‘You can have it then. Meet you out front.’

‘You just said he was taken.’

‘The guy hasn’t paid yet. Warned him I’d sell it in the meantime if 152

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someone wanted it.’

I considered saying I wouldn’t like to buy him if someone else was expecting to. Though I didn’t, because his story seemed unlikely enough that I was pretty sure he was covering up some other reason. And because I really wanted that dog.

I paid for him and the man told Sally to get the dog out of the cage.

‘May I pick him up on another day?’

‘When?’

‘Well, funnily enough I was hoping around Christmas as well.’

He sniffed outward. ‘Christmas present, eh? We get lots a’ them back in here.’

‘Yeah, for my sister and me. Is the 24th alright? We open gifts on Christmas Eve so I’d like to pick him up the same day.’

He opened a drawer on his desk, looking a bit annoyed, and rifled through some papers I couldn’t see. He stopped on one and peered at it without taking it out.

‘Can’t guarantee someone else won’t buy it after the nineteenth.’ There

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was the grin again.

‘I thought I just paid for him. But I can come on the nineteenth if necessary.’

‘Thought you were taking it now,’ he said, handing me back my money.

‘Well alright, I’ll come back then.’

‘It’ll have to be before twelve o’clock.’

I waited in the café in the service station not far down the road to Beerwah.

I was thinking about the words Strictly No Euthanasia I’d seen featured among those awards on the wall. Pentobarbital must be an expensive drug. Then there’d be equipment, licences, paperwork and so on. One could save a lot of money.

The cars were switching their lights on. I waited till a certain white van merged onto the main road, and I watched till it was out of sight. If you can’t see them, as the saying goes. The window would be no obstacle. I knew that as soon as I’d noticed it in the foyer. My only worry was that the dogs would bark. Surely they’d bark all the time, with that many in there to encourage each other. It would be nothing extraordinary for someone to hear, 154

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I reasoned, while I walked back toward the shelter.

Window-spaces are deceptively small. Maybe my judgement of them hasn’t caught up with my age, for lack of practice. Anyway, I got through easily enough. The trouble with dogs is even if you’re silent as a cat—they will hear you. But they didn’t bark. I clicked my torch on, went straight to the draw behind the counter, and flicked through its contents.

Christmas Party 19/12/14. Coochin Ck. Red ink scrawled on the endpaper of some folder. That must have been

the note he had checked. I copied it onto my hand, and looked through some other documents too—that’s how I got those figures I cited earlier. A paperclip’s as good as a key so far as filing cabinets are concerned. I wanted to go out the back and see the Kelpie again before I left, but decided against it. As it happened, I disturbed the dogs anyway. I was halfway out the window, when something small snapped off, tick-tacking on the lino. I was going to slip back in, but that’s when they started howling, so I didn’t stick around. If the man—the owner, whose name I still didn’t know—had been more careful when he found it, that single fly-screen tab might have foiled me.

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I spent the time between then and the nineteenth pondering those words and wondering what to do. One thing was for sure—I would be attending that Christmas party. There was only one parky sort of area in Coochin Creek likely to suit, according to the map, so that part was sorted. It was a long, twisted waterway that spanned the sparsely inhabited land between Beerwah and the sea. The only thing I’d heard about it was from fishermen, who raved about its abundance of fish. Fishermen, that is, who owned large and secure boats. Altogether it seemed like an odd choice, and undoubtedly worth investigating. I only wish I’d acted sooner.

I arrived at the shelter on the nineteenth of December at five past twelve.

The lateness was part of the plan. I’d parked about a block away and walked up inconspicuously. The van was in the driveway by the side of the building with its tail opened. I waited a moment before entering the premise. The trees everywhere helped; it was easy to stay concealed. Doors were opening and closing somewhere out the back, and a voice faded in, ‘… Bloody cats are more trouble than they’re worth, Sal, I tell ya. Next year it’s gonna be just dogs. All the money’s in the dogs anyway.’

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get another load, I walked into the foyer as if I’d just gotten there. I paid for the kelpie and brought him back to my car. The van left the shelter shortly after. I didn’t have to follow it since I knew where they were going. I just had to make sure I’d arrive at the right time.

‘Why does he try to sell off the ones that don’t like to swim?’ I asked my dog. He sat on the passenger’s seat while I drove the dirt roads to Coochin Creek. ‘If he was just going to drown them, it doesn’t make sense.’

But I didn’t tell him what crossed my mind then; what I remembered one fisherman had said about Coochin Creek. I should have seen it sooner.

I told him to stay in the car when we had come close enough and parked.

Now, I’m not much of an animal activist, really. Not like some people are. I could almost appreciate his ingenuity at the whole thing. But when I saw the stick and what he was doing with it, I got mad. I came in sight of the camping area and thought he was fishing. Sally was standing at the barbecue with a pair of tongs hanging limply in her grip, her tears streaming down to sizzle on the hotplate. I was about to say something when there was a swish in the creek and I saw a fin. He wasn’t fishing at all—he was standing there at the top of that steep slippery muddy bank and poking them back in the water when they’d try to climb out. He wouldn’t even move his feet, he’d just reach

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out and sweep the paws from under them and push them out like paper boats down a gutter. A gutter with rows and rows of teeth.

‘How’re those sausages coming?’ He turned around to say but cut himself short when he met my eyes and I saw fear flicker across his face.

‘You! I knew it was you!’ he said, digging furiously into his pocket. He pulled out the tiny fly-screen tab and held it up like a gem. Something raced past my legs and headed for the water. I must have left the car window open.

I chased but the Kelpie leaped straight into the water to join his mates.

‘Give me that stick, you bastard.’

We struggled.

I had no idea what I’d do if I got control of it. Perhaps it’s for the better that I didn’t get the chance to find out. That’s because Sally pushed him in.

Suddenly his was just another wide-eyed face among the fur and thrashing water.

‘Hyghuh! Help—Sal!’ She seized the stick from me and started whacking him over the head, missing and slapping the water around him most of the time, wilder with each stroke. She would’ve fallen in too if I hadn’t pulled her away.

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The Kelpie made it out of the water, and some of the others did too. I picked mine up and said to Sally, ‘What was his name?’

‘Gilbert,’ she said flatly, though I don’t think she’d even heard my question.

She sat there staring at the water. Gilbert was slightly larger than most of us, I grant, but it’s still a wonder how much blood drains out of something so small as a man. And how much blood stains, I suppose.

We called the Kelpie Gilbert too. He doesn’t take after his namesake, though. Nor does he like to swim anymore, but that’s fair enough.

Neither do I.

COOCHIN CREEK

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Waitress TAHLIA KERTESZ

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Wave after wave of people crash down on the café like a hoard of the undead.

Moaning and groaning that their orders are wrong, they’re missing meals and they’ve been waiting over forty minutes. Their voices drone on and on. It’s so hot outside. It’s a cloudless Sunday by the lake.

Surfers shake the salt water from their hair as they haul their still-wet boards

onto the roof racks of their 4WDs. Kids hang off their parent’s arms, shrieking they want ice cream and they want it now. The elderly shuffle along, eager for their morning coffee and daily dose of complaining, all the while dodging the teenagers flying by on skateboards.

The coffee grinder’s mechanical whirl punctures the constant scraping of

knives and forks and the clinking of coffee mugs on saucers.

Her eyeballs roll back, scraping her brain as she hears, ‘Excuse me, could

you please check on our bacon and eggs?’

‘Can you find out how long our chocolate frappes are going to be?’

‘What’s in the mango magic smoothie?’

‘We’re still waiting on our English breakfast tea and our quarter strength

vanilla soy latte with an extra shot?’

Over and over again.

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‘Excuse me, there’s no cutlery.’

Panic rising. ‘I’ve got to do some up now.’

Eighties music blares from the speakers. She’s so sick of this CD.

‘Oh God, where’s the docket for 49? Please tell me I didn’t spike it

accidentally!’

‘Hang on, I’ll help you in a minute.’ Poor kid, at least she’s not the only one struggling out here.

An ibis scavenges the remains off tables needing to be cleared. People laugh

as the bird knocks mugs and plates to the ground, shattering them in a dozen ceramic pieces. They think it’s hilarious, but she has to clean up the mess. No one offers to help.

As soon as people leave, families of four with two more children who need

high chairs and six old ladies poach tables like vultures. They’ll all want coffee and custard tarts. That reminds her; table number 2 needs a refund. We ran out of ham and salad wraps. They’ll understand? Yeah no, they won’t. They never do.

‘Excuse me, are there any tables left?’

No, no there aren’t, do you have eyes?

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TAHLIA KERTESZ

Be happy. Smile.

‘I’m sorry, but unfortunately we’re at full capacity at the moment.’

The ding of the kitchen bell and the even more impatient ding of the coffee bell is excruciating to her ears.

She’s got to clear more tables. Sometimes people take pity and help. Not today.

Ding. Kitchen.

‘Order up!’

Ding. Ding. Coffee.

‘Order for table number 20 please!’

Her back spasms in protest, arms aching under the weight of an industrial tray of twelve plates, seven saucers, three juice glasses and four coffee mugs.

She’s shoved the other two in her apron pocket.

Ding. Kitchen.

‘I need runners, table number 13!’

Her pulse thuds in her ears.

A metal milkshake cup clangs to the floor; the sad remains of the banana

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shake dribble down her arm. She’s got nowhere to put down the tray and retrieve her fallen silverware. She really, really needs to pee.

‘Can you wipe down our table?’

Be happy. Smile.

She chokes back hysterics. ‘Yes, of course.’

Dishes need to be done. We need more plates. We need more cutlery.

Someone needs to refill the napkins. Table number 40 is missing a plate of bacon and eggs and a sausage with eggs and a hash brown.

‘Our food is cold. Do you have a manager I can speak to about this?’

Anxiety claws up her throat.

The manager is the barista and he has seven orders to make.

Ding. Kitchen.

Ding. Ding. Coffee.

‘Is there any cutlery left?’

She has to do some soon.

‘Can you please take these toasties to 18, and find out where 51’s are? I can’t find them.’

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Breathe, just breathe. ‘Okay, sure. I’ll take them and have a look.’

Okay, only seven more hours to go.

‘What do you mean our food isn’t ready yet? We’ve been waiting over an hour!’

You’ve been waiting thirty-five minutes. We write times on our dockets. Shut up.

Be happy. Smile.

Ring. Ring. Ring. Pick up the phone.

‘Good morning, Beach Café, how may I help you?’

‘Hi, I’d like to reserve a table today for fourteen people at 10:30.’

‘I’m sorry, but we can’t take bookings on a Sunday. We’re at full capacity already.’

She needs to flip that order of kid’s pancakes before they burn; two more orders need to go on. Oh great, people want ice cream. She’s still sticky and stained from when she served it last. A waffle cone shattered all over her hands.

There’s a family of seven waiting for their ice cream. She can’t even see a

gap between people to navigate through at the front counter. She’s glad she’s not on till. The ATM is dropping out and we’re a cash-only business. The hoard has

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taken over the whole inside of the shop.

‘Excuse me, please.’

Why are they not moving? Can they not see she’s carrying two heavy, burning hot ‘big brekkies’ and a plate of bacon and eggs?

Please move. That would be really helpful.

‘Do you guys have tomato sauce?’

Yes we do, all three bottles are on the tables and people can’t be bothered putting them back at the self-service station.

‘Oh, do we have to get our own napkins and cutlery?’

Yes, you have to get your own cutlery. Do you see how busy we are?

‘The service here is disgraceful. I’d like a refund.’

‘Can you check on our meals? We’re number 40.’

Be happy. Smile.

‘Of course, I’ll be right back.’

She thinks if she were to impale herself right now with a butter knife and lay across a table, while the asshole ibis picks at her remains and drags her intestines on the floor, people would still ask her to clear their table or check on 166

TAHLIA KERTESZ

their order. They’d probably ask one of the other waitresses to move her body and wipe the table so they could sit at it.

Ding. Kitchen.

Ding. Ding. Coffee.

She’s got to take the rubbish out. That’s the third time in the past two hours.

When will it end? A child screeches for their pancakes.

Be happy. Smile.

‘How was your breakfast?’

‘May I take your plates?’

‘Thank you, have a nice day!’

Ding. Kitchen.

Ding. Ding. Coffee.

Someone needs to do the cutlery. Hysteria bubbles in her throat. Number 5 got skipped. Someone spiked the docket.

‘You’re doing a really good job, sweetie. Day’s almost over.’

There’s still the lunch shift to go.

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She wipes down a table and feels the half-full teapot within her apron pocket soak through her pants. She’s got to get that order for 13 out.

She wipes down the table with her tears.

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TAHLIA KERTESZ

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169

170

MARK GERRETT

The Swing This used to be the safest place in the world. Nobody could ever find me when I hid up here. Will it save me now? The hidden door, I thought as a child, was always my secret protector. But in truth, when I think back on it, it was this window that gave me the most security: a tiny portal looking down on our front yard and the rest of the world. A vantage point from where I could survey all things. Plus, from here I can see the swing. Empty now and rusted with memories, hanging condemned above the weed-infested yard. It’s hard to make out any details through this filthy glass. How could Liz have let it get so dirty? But then, my sister never could look after her things.

I remember how mad I was the day Mum told me she was giving Liz the house. Of course by then we all knew Mum was dying, and as the eldest daughter it was my duty to help her organise her affairs.

Poor Liz, she said, she has nothing!

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That’s right Mum, and I have so much, right?

Damn right, and hadn’t I worked my guts out for every single thing!

David and I were building an empire! Three houses now, count them. Three!

And me with my business degree that I suffered for, sleepless nights studying and raising Lilly, all the while keeping the house spotless for David and cooking his meals. No help from anyone, but how was that any different from every other day in my life; and Liz, my baby sister, always getting what she wanted.

But I had the swing.

The swing was mine.

Dad built it, just for me, with his own hands, and presented it to me on my fourth birthday. That it still stands is a testimony to my father’s ability.

They don’t make men like that anymore. But of course he was gone by the time Liz was swing age. So she had gotten a scooter, and a puppy, and every fucking thing else, and here I am thirty years later, my life forfeit, all because of her mistakes.

All my life busy moving but going nowhere.

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Damn I want to clean this window, but I’m too scared to move right now. I should be running, but instead I’m hiding. I just haven’t got the strength. I can barely breathe from fear. The swing looks like a dream through the murky pane, like looking through a dead fish’s eye. How long before they find me here wearing nothing but a towel? Just the thought makes me want to throw up. I fight the urge to faint.

I should be making plans, getting further away, but the sight of the swing won’t release me. God, how I used to feel in that seat! A place to launch into flight, to dream, to thrill at the giddy yawn in my stomach. From there I could be anyone, do anything.

I can sense the attic space behind me, the dusty books and debris of a family in tatters. The velvet skinned dress-maker’s dummy, head severed. I used to wonder where it was kept, never believing it had none. I feel a vague urge to rummage through the attic treasures, as if nostalgia could save me. But I am trapped, eyes swivelled down and chained to the swing. I haven’t slept for days, haven’t blinked for hours. The seconds flick by, devouring me. I thought I’d be safe here, what a ridiculous fantasy. This is the worst place to be. And all I can do is stare and stare. The swing wants me here. It hints, whispers, commands me to remember. And I do.

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A sunlit winter’s afternoon—I’m hiding, again, fourteen today and the partygoers are seeking out each other’s hiding spots. Of course the attic is mine. I’ve had a small tantrum, forbidding my little sister to play. She would reveal me to the seekers for sure; she knows my favourite hiding place. I want to be found, but only by Huntley Wickham. Gorgeous Huntley Wickham.

None of the other kids know my spot, but Huntley does. I’d shown him the week before, and I plan to have him back here again today.

It’s why I’ve insisted on hide-and-go-seek. A child’s game, I know, but I have my reasons. My friends aren’t taking it seriously, but I don’t care. I will hide here and wait for Huntley to find me, to hunt me down. I’m at the little window, excited, smirking. I see Liz. She’s sitting on my swing, but I don’t mind. Mum let her, so she would stop crying. She’s out of the way. Two of my guests chase each other around the swing then disappear from view. It won’t be long now. I can sense him creeping along the hall, about to burst through the tiny door…

But no, there he is, sauntering over to the swing, hands in pockets. Why 174

MARK GERRETT

isn’t he looking for me? He’s talking to my sister. She’s laughing and looking down, but he bends to her and wipes the remnant of a tear from her cheek.

Jealousy has thrown a hook into my heart and is climbing fast into me. As he starts to push her on the swing I can hear her faint cries of joy and I ball my fists tight. Then I sink to the floor of the attic and cry and cry and cry.

Okay, swing, I get it. I never forgave her, such a stupid thing. Are you happy now? But still it holds me. I was wrong. The memory was not a sudden splash but the first wave of an inundating tide. My ship is sinking. The urgency inside me telling me to flee is the very anchor holding me still. Is this my life passing before my eyes? Am I that dead already? Is that movement I hear down the hall? Am I found? I need escape, what I get is …

Reverie…

Lilly, four, laughing on the down swing then squealing delight as David launches her higher and higher. This was just before Mum got sick and she

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couldn’t mind Lilly any more. We exchanged kisses and hugs and headed out to another party. David’s firm was doing brilliantly and life was full of mild excess and the pleasures of success. I can no longer recall the reason for the party, but I do remember starkly what happened later. David pulled me aside as I fixed another drink in the kitchen.

‘Getting along famously with Brett, I see,’ he whispered through a sly

smirk.

‘Oh,’ a quick over-the-shoulder glance at his new employee standing

where I had left him. ‘Yeah, I guess so.’ I remember looking at him quizzically.

Was this a jealous side to David I’d never seen?

‘He’s smitten with you, Dane. It’s so obvious. I can see you two flirting.’

‘Oh, really David! You can’t be serious.’

He leaned in closer and brushed my ear with his stubble.

‘It’s turning me on,’ his grin was wolf-black, dangerous.

‘Really?’ I replied, unaffected, but inside my heart was flip-flopping. We

hadn’t been intimate much recently and the deep thrum of his voice in my ear, plus his lewd insinuation, quickened my pulse. I gave him a sultry look.

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‘Well, well ...’

MARK GERRETT

What was this communication between us, strange yet electric?

‘Why don’t you … get back to it?’ he almost didn’t say it. I wished he

hadn’t.

‘Meaning?’ I fluttered my lashes at him.

‘Go on back. Lead him on. Work the poor sucker into a lather. I’ll be

watching.’ That smile again.

I looked back in Brett’s direction. He caught me and raised his glass from

across the room. David was still looking at me with a dark lust. In hindsight I should have slapped him, thrown my drink in his face and stormed off, told him where to go at the very least. But no, I did just what he said. Before I left he grabbed my arm.

‘Just don’t go too far,’ he said.

Well, things certainly went further and further over the months and years

to come. I don’t know what he had meant by ‘too far’ but as I kept going the boundary could not be found. It turns out there wasn’t one. And it wasn’t just Brett. There were others—an out of town client at our holiday home, then a developer from Sydney. On it went and I just went along with it; after all it was doing dynamite things for our sex life. Then he brought a female acquaintance

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home one night and it seemed a perfectly natural progression. David just wanted to watch, he said, the two of us. The initial alarm bells fell silent after the third soft kiss and I found myself entranced by the sweetness of the sin. By the time he joined in I was already delirious.

My head is resting on the glass now. I am defeated. I am staring at the swing again but all I can see is the carnage these interludes have heaped upon our lives. I am floating in the wake of a tsunami. Our life: the small ruins of a village.

I am crying again. This is wasting time. I try to clear my throat. Things have come to a head and I need to leave, right now. These games were never going to end well, and the people after me will have no mercy. When they catch me, they won’t just kill me, I know. No such luxury for Dane Turner.

They will torture me, for certain. Keep me in a dark cage and make me suffer.

Suddenly, finally, I feel panic. I stride to the attic door and stop.

I can’t go out there. I can’t face what’s on the other side of this door. I should have never let it get this far.

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We had started going to private parties, sex parties. I had reached the point where I wanted it all to stop. David said he understood. It was time we got back to normal, he said. Put it all behind us.

One last time, he said.

The party did not go as planned. Everyone got too drunk. I refused the various advances from the randy dogs sniffing around and David, sensing my discomfort, came back to my side. Beyond driving, we commandeered one of the rooms and crashed out, lying together, but miles apart. At some dark hour I awoke alone. David had sought out one of the women from the party, she’d retired alone. I don’t think anyone got lucky that night, least of all David.

It was lunchtime the next day before the phone calls started. We’d arrived home hung-over, neither of us wanting to speak. I took the first call and it shot me full of cold broken glass—a furious man on the line wanting to know where David was; threats of violence, police, newspapers. By the end of the afternoon it was clear that there were several exceptionally mean characters closing in on David.

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‘Well did you? Did you do it?’ I was screaming and crying at the same time.

‘Babe, it was a party. We were all there for the same thing …’

‘Did you rape her?’

Pathetic justifications by reply; sketchy scenarios. He had me trapped in the kitchen.

‘You’ll stand by me on this, Dane. Please,’ he was begging me.

‘I’ve got to pick up Lilly,’ I dodged the question. Poor Lilly, she was only eight. How could I ...?

I did though, in the end, stand by him. We just had too much to lose. That woman had come to the party, after all. But then so did I. It never made it to court. It wasn’t so much the lack of evidence as the overwhelming weight of the woman’s shame. I thought then that it would be finished, that the scare would be enough. I’ve been such a fool.

How long have I been standing, staring at this door? Lord, give me courage. Close my eyes. Forgive me.

Nothing.

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Even He has abandoned me now.

I walk back to the window, slowly, scared to look.

No more memories, please.

At least no more bad ones.

I stop halfway. I try to imagine the little girl on the swing: the happy child, innocent and carefree. Before all this. Before heartache and jealousy and darkness. Please, be there. Save me.

I take the last few steps urgently, but when I get there I see nothing but the swing. It sways slightly. Is it a breeze, or has the ghost of a little girl just gotten off and left?

Time to deal with this.

I will not let them overpower me. I will pick up the knife and run straight at them screeching, a wild woman driven mad by a fallen world. They will be forced to kill me, I will struggle and slash and fight until they have no choice.

At last I am ready, and open the attic door.

I am greeted with a stillness that only Death can know.

Down the hall, to the master bedroom. My sister’s room. The room with

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David in it.

Eyes fixed to the floor, I walk straight to the wardrobe. Past the bed sheets on the floor. Past the bed. Past the scene I cannot see.

I dress in one of my sister’s baggy florals. No underwear. I don’t want to go there. I find myself staring into the hangings in the wardrobe, and I realise I have to see him one last time.

I turn.

There he is.

Facing away from me, revealing his neck with its meaty slash.

My wrath had not been a frenzied one. The carving knife was meant to scare—but when I saw them together, the thing just came alive in my hand. I buried that blade all the way to the hilt and hung on while his struggles faded.

Liz had not even tried to save him. She had fled the bedroom while I rode him to his end. Is that what he wanted? A weakling? A coward? She hadn’t gotten far though. The study, of course. She knew my secret places, yes, and I knew hers. It’s funny how panic makes children of us all, bolting to futile sanctuaries.

I should know.

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I just spent the last two hours in an attic.

I find my way downstairs to the kitchen. Pick up my bag. Instinctively I fossick for my phone. Turn it on. Yes, I’d even turned my phone off. That’s how premeditated this was. There’ll be no protracted argument on the courtroom floor. All that pointless plotting in the shower as David’s blood vanished down the drain, Liz’s blood entwined. No alibis, beyond the fake out of town business trip, which would fool no-one.

She had the knife with her when she went upstairs!

How did it go this far? (Don’t go too far! What a joke!)

Four missed calls. Lilly’s school.

Lilly’s here in the office and no one has picked her up.

That’s what I’ll do.

She’s quite upset.

I’ll pick her up, late; I’m so sorry, hectic life, blah, blah. Then we will flee.

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There comes a time when even the strong ones have to run. I will take the knife though, because deep down I believe that it will come to that. They will come after me, and when they do I won’t be running, except straight at them.

They will have no choice but to end this. Then Lilly will see what a cruel world this is. It’s a jungle out there, my darling, and you do what you have to.

I will have to go into the study to get the knife. It should be the same one.

Who knows, perhaps I will give Liz a kiss on the cheek, to say goodbye.

I never get that far.

When they come, they find me.

Not running.

Not hiding.

But on the swing, chains creaking.

Busy moving but going nowhere.

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MARK GERRETT

THE SWING

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Girls, Guys and Grad DUSTY MILLERS

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‘Guys can get stressed out over formal too, right?’

As he paced around his room, running through his mental checklist, Aaron wondered exactly how hard this could be. It’s formal. Go, accept the certificate, eat, and party. How hard is that? He grabbed his jacket, stared at the mirror and messed his hair a bit. Girls like a guy to look a bit rough, right?

‘Guys have no idea how stressful formal can be!’

As she wandered around her room idly, Sammy was happy she’d gotten everything done on time. She was dressed, made up; she had her clothes for the after party. There was a beautifully refurbished old Holden parked downstairs and she still had a half hour before everyone got here.

‘You look great, buddy. Trust me. You’re going to have a great night.’

Sure, his mother would say that. She always thought he looked great. It wasn’t much of a compliment, but all the same, it gave him some confidence, and he puffed out his chest. A horn blast leads him to the door, and there they all were, waiting for him. Aaron wondered if they had as much anxiety as he did.

‘You look beautiful, princess. King’s decree, so you can’t argue.’

It was a joke that she’d heard her whole life, but strangely, her 187

cheeks flushed tonight. There was something different in the way he said it, and Sammy felt lighter, even girlier. The promise of dresses and tuxedos and the glimmer of the lights were so much more enticing now. She walked outside and was greeted by her friends, all as giddy as her. Her uncle turned the key and the car roared to life.

‘And here they come.’

Aaron barely registered his friend’s comment. He was straightening his bowtie. It sat uncomfortably around his neck, so he loosened it, and it hung lopsided. Oh well. Then he turned, and that bright red car with the gold stripe drove into view. It was huge, and once stopped, three beautiful women got out, followed by one blindingly stunning vision. Even though she was the reason he was so nervous, she was also the reason he was suddenly so comfortable.

‘Wow, they do look handsome. Who knew Aaron could scrub up so nice?’

Sammy was still feeling giddy, and it was starting to show in her composure. Then, she saw him. That goofy guy with his bowtie loose, watching her ride up, and she was no longer nervous. The 188

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night was suddenly wondrous. He was the reason she never lost her cool. He was the reason she was so calm in her room. He was the reason she couldn’t stop smiling now.

‘Mummy can’t dress you?’

His friend’s jeering didn’t bother him in the best of circumstances. Tonight he found it very amusing. Mummy certainly didn’t dress him, and Sammy could straighten any part of his attire she liked. She tousled his hair, and he chuckled. Her on his arm, they walked in together, the lights and pageantry swarming around them. An elbow in his ribs and his friend pointed to their table. There he would sit, almost an adult.

‘I can’t wait for the dance.’

The whisper was barely a whisper, anticipation running through her friend’s voice. She’d never slow-danced in public before. As they reached their table, Aaron pulled out her chair, and every other male blushed in shame, madly scrambling to reach their partner’s seats before they sat down. They all failed. Aaron was the perfect gentleman tonight.

‘And finally...’

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The applause was deafening, a whistle here and there. Aaron tried his best to be respectable, but he’d much rather eat with his fingers. Everything was finger food if you wanted it to be. Still, he wasn’t here for the meal. He was here for Sammy, and if she could hold ceremony, so could he. He thought about that phrase, and finally. He was the last one there, but was it so final?

Maybe he would be back one day, teaching in the very rooms he just spent years learning in.

‘And now…’

The dance was so mesmerising. There was a disco ball spinning lazily, and the DJ took requests. They were able to dance to their song, the song they danced to on their first date. Sammy thought back to that night, the stars, the trees, and them. Perhaps she could get a position nearby. She knew how nostalgic he was of this place. Besides, she liked it here too, and isn’t that what growing up is about? Finding something you love and making it yours?

‘I hope you find that special someone.’

The DJ obviously had never met Sammy and Aaron. They were in the middle of the dance floor, her head on his chest, him holding her, safe, loved. The world may have been watching them and they would have never realised.

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The world could end there and then, and they’d die in complete bliss. This is heaven. This is the world. This is exactly how things are supposed to be. Life was going to be good from here on.

‘I’m a bit dizzy, I think I need a break.’

Sammy, on tippy-toes, kissed Aaron on the cheek, and then walked off with her friends to grab a drink. They were all laughing and swaying; the music had a higher tempo and the atmosphere had picked up to match. They were all giggling about how cute the boys looked, and what a great night they had ahead. Sarah was dreamily talking about her plans to go to university with her boyfriend. Skye was listening, but obviously thinking about her leave next week for the Navy. All Sammy could think about now was him, and her, the two of them, together. Tonight was …

‘The beginning of the rest of our lives!’

The boys had stepped out onto the balcony, the cool night air sobering them up. They toasted to life, as it was about to get a whole lot better. Danny had a job lined up in his dad’s garage. Heath was jet-setting around Europe for a year. Arty had a sporting scholarship—archery was the best hobby. All Aaron could think of was her. That beautiful person he’d get to spend his life with.

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Plans upon plans upon plans, all with one connection. The beautiful …

‘Pictures on the wall.’

The room echoed and the world seemed so far away, here in this hall of frozen time. Museums were amazing. She wished she had more time, but Sammy didn’t realise how little time she had.

The world was about to get a whole lot smaller, but ever more beautiful. She would later reflect on her time in that hall, and be grateful for the time to herself. While they shared a love of many things, museums just weren’t Aaron’s thing, and that was something that made them all-the-more special.

‘That sounds so exciting.’

Aaron was sitting on the grass, talking to a couple he had met by chance.

They were talking in very fast French, but he was keeping up. The world was huge, full of bright people with fascinating stories. Aaron only hoped that one day he’d have a story of his own to tell. He would, although not in the way he thought. It had been almost a year of their two-year trip around Eurasia.

Of all the things they had seen, this is the thing that he loved the most—the anticipation of seeing her again. He felt both independent and wanting.

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‘We’re coming home a bit early.’

Sammy had felt anxious about telling her mother. Her mother could be a judgemental person. A bit early would be six months, but their trip was complete anyway. In the time left they were going to visit their friend Heath in Bora Bora. They decided to drop that to a two-week trip, during which they had a wonderful time, and their first congratulations. However, time was no longer on their side, and they headed back home with fond memories and prospects.

‘It really was the trip of a lifetime.’

Aaron spent a long few hours talking to his parents that night. Being home for a week was settling for him, but he had asked for just a night alone with his parents. He wanted to just be a family again, before everything changes. He was continuously reassured that it was a good thing, even if unexpected, and he told himself it was true. He told himself again and again. This would be the beginning of a wonderful thing for them all. He wished it were true.

‘I’ve missed this so much.’

The world was big and beautiful and brimming with wonder, but

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Sammy had dearly missed being at home, in her room, being able to hug her parents as she went to bed. For just one night, she decided, she would be a kid again. Her father cooked, her mother cleaned, she sat in front of the television feeling as if she was ten years old again. This was something she could always find if she asked—her little family. Her little family was about to get a little bit bigger.

‘I know I should be grateful.’

Aaron was grabbing a beer with Danny. Arty was visiting in a few days, so they decided to grab a drink before he got there to catch up. Arty had a busy life now, and when they did talk, he tended to take up a lot of the talking time. Danny and Aaron had always been closer, and here Aaron was hiding a secret. A few drinks in, he decided he was going to tell him everything. About time, was the response. It should be the happiest time of his life, but there’s something no one else knows about.

‘I am feeling so distant from him right now.’

It was great to catch up with Skye and Sarah again. For another brief moment it seemed like old times. Eventually, they realised something was wrong with their friend, and she confided in them.

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What if he doesn’t want the baby? was a briefly uttered statement.

Was there a reason he may not be happy about this? Luckily it was night, the lights were low, and her friends didn’t see her blush.

There was one reason, but Aaron didn’t know about that, so it didn’t matter, and she didn’t bring it up.

‘I still love you.’

It was a word that he didn’t want to use. However, it seemed to be an important word. Did this feeling for her ever change? No. Was there a chance that it would change?

‘Do you still love me?’

She didn’t want to ask this question, it scared her. But she felt like it was a conversation they definitely needed to have. She had to know.

‘What would you do?’

It didn’t seem like a question anyone could answer. Aaron knew no one who could speak from experience. So far, all he could do was stay where he was.

Because he did love her.

‘I don’t know what to do.’

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Sammy didn’t know who to turn to. She knew that Danny knew something, but he was tight-lipped and avoiding her. She just wanted to have her family with the man she loved.

‘The doctor said it’d be a couple of hours yet.’

It had been a long nine months. Now, it was coming to an end. The closer it was, the sicker he felt. Danny was next to him, and the world was crashing around him. He stood at the window to the delivery room.

‘It’s time to push.’

She could feel the ideal family she had dreamed of slipping further and further out of reach. The pain was unbearable, and still nothing to the anticipation that had welled up inside her. The world was crashing around her, and there her world was, standing at the window, looking in from the outside.

‘You should go see.’

He knew Danny was right. He needed to go and see. The nurse led him to the delivery room. Both the doctor and nurse left. There it was, his little family, inside this room. The three of them were silent. He walked to Sammy’s side, and suddenly she looked so innocent, so beautiful, so perfect. For a glimpse,

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their life was perfect. He shook his head, and tears welled.

‘This is our family, isn’t it?’

She was exhausted. She was scared. The world was a big, dark, scary place, and this moment dragged on so long, she thought it might never end. After this moment, the world would be changed forever. She didn’t understand. She was in denial. Yet in the back of her mind, as a soft whisper, that voice told her she was wrong.

‘I know what happened.’

‘You know?’

‘I’ve always known.’

‘How did you know? Why didn’t you say anything?’

‘Because I didn’t want a reason to leave you.’

The moment that passed was devastating. Then, Aaron reached down and held the child in his arms. The world seemed to suddenly buzz with opportunities.

Aaron saw the future, with its memories, and its trials, and everything seemed worthwhile.

‘Please say something?’

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Sammy seemed so perfect. She loved Aaron, and he loved her.

‘I think we need a name for our baby.’

Sammy’s eyes lit up and she smiled for the first time in months.

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GIRLS, GUYS AND GRAD

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Boys’ Clothes DYLAN KIMMEDY

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Yuki stepped across the threshold into the facility, assaulted by the din of the clean-up crew that had taken up residence in the lobby. Shards of glass crunched under her shoes as she walked, the brittle fragments littering the sterile tiles. The usual bustle of medical staff and businessmen that were the trademark of GENTEC hospitality had been engulfed among the police, as officers cordoned off the space behind reams of fluorescent tape. Detectives flitted about the place, questioning the staff.

From the depths of the crowd, an officer spotted her arrival and made a beeline for her, his brisk pace offering no chance of escape. Yuki paused, momentary panic rising as the stranger’s intensity bared down upon her.

‘Miss, this is a restricted crime scene. Civilians are not allowed past this point.’ He came to a halt in front of her, impatience clear on his face as he motioned toward the door she had just come through.

‘Um, I-I have an appointment with Dr Stroud,’ Yuki stammered. She made a hesitant gesture toward the figures investigating the remains of the lobby door. ‘The officers out front let me through …’

The officer considered Yuki for a moment, his gaze settling on the backpack hanging limply from her shoulders. She squirmed under his gaze.

He was probably sizing up whether the girl in front of him was a threat, but 201

she hated people staring at the best of times.

‘Right. Can I see some identification please, Miss?’

‘Y-yeah, of course,’ she said, swinging the pack to her front and rifling through the contents. She noticed the officer’s hand move towards the dark holster at his belt as she handed over her GENTEC ID badge and wallet for inspection. ‘I’m one of Dr Stroud’s patients.’ She hesitated. ‘From the GRA trials?’

That earned her a raised eyebrow from the officer. ‘So, they just let you people walk around, huh?’ Yuki bristled at the snide comment, biting her lip and looking away. She wasn’t about to give him an excuse.

‘And they wonder why people keep breaking in.’ He dismissively returned the wallet and badge. ‘Stroud, you said? Captain’s questioning him in his office. I can escort you if you—’ ‘I know the way,’ Yuki interrupted, ‘may I pass?’

The officer held up his hands in mock surrender. ‘Of course. Take care now, Miss,’ he said, sauntering back into the crowd. As Yuki trudged across the lobby toward the elevator, she heard him murmur something to a colleague, who politely chuckled.

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Very subtle, creep. She jammed the button and breathed a ragged sigh as the metal doors slid shut.

Yuki never thought she’d be happy to see the empty, sterile halls of the GENTEC offices, but after her interaction in the lobby, the oppressive solitude was a welcome change. Her sneakers echoed in the long corridor—all branching paths and identical closed doors. Right turn. Left turn. Seven doors down. After three years in and out of the place, she may as well have been an expert. She passed by the new promotional poster, cringing at the slogan: GENTEC: Working for the future. Sheesh. Marketing had really dropped the ball letting ‘it’s in the genes’ slip through their fingers. Everyone likes a pun.

As Yuki reached the door to Stroud’s office, she heard the muffled sound of conversation inside. As the officer downstairs had said, the doctor was indeed being interviewed, though Yuki wondered why he had not simply been questioned downstairs with the growing crowd. If they were singling out Stroud, it had to have something to do with the GRA trials. After all, while the trials themselves were in the public eye this past year, they were still only a small part of GENTEC’s research projects, from what Yuki understood. She knocked on the door and the room behind the wood panelling fell silent for a moment.

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‘Who is it?’ Stroud’s voice called.

‘Dr Stroud? It’s Yuki Azuma. We had an appointment today …’

The murmuring resumed for a moment, and the door swung open. A man in a dark suit stood in the doorway, and beyond him, sitting at the all too familiar desk in the tiny room, was Stroud.

‘I can come back later if—’ ‘No, that’s alright. Come in, Yuki.’ The man in the suit stepped to one side, and Yuki caught the scent of cigarettes as she entered. ‘This is Captain Burke, with the police. We were just having a chat regarding an incident that occurred over the weekend.’

‘The same one that’s taken over the lobby downstairs?’ Yuki asked, turning to the man in the suit and holding out a hand. ‘Nice to meet you, Captain Burke.’

The captain’s hand enveloped hers in a quick handshake, and he flashed a polite smile in her direction. ‘The very same. Looks like a standard break-in, but with all the worry surrounding this place, it never hurts to be thorough.

Nice to meet you too, Miss Azuma.’ He shot a quizzical look at Stroud, who had been silently watching the awkward exchange from behind the desk.

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‘Yuki here is one of my long-term patients, from the Genetic Restructuring Actualisation trials.’ Stroud stood, offering Yuki one of the seats in front of the heavy desk, which she took.

‘Odd that I haven’t seen you on the news, then,’ the captain shut the door, sealing the small room off from the rest of the world. ‘I thought all of the GRA subjects were self-made celebrities these days, whether they liked it or not. Changing genders is a pretty big deal, after all.’

‘I, uh, try to stay out of the spotlight.’ Yuki brushed a stray strand of hair out of her eyes. She looked at Stroud, whose expression told her it was safe to talk. ‘I was in one of the earlier test groups, three years ago. Before the media started blowing things about the GRA out of proportion and the crazies started rolling in downstairs. Ah, sorry. The protestors,’ she added sheepishly.

The captain chuckled. ‘No need to apologise. Sometimes those two things are one and the same. Besides, with the amount of calls we get on both sides of the GENTEC issue, you have to have a thick skin. The “crazies”, as you call them, demand almost daily that we arrest Stroud here and the rest of GENTEC for “crimes against nature” and at the same time spend their days setting cars on fire and going on witch hunts against any poor soul they can sink their teeth into. I can hardly blame you for wanting to keep out of

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the whole thing.’ He looked like he wanted to say more, but was interrupted by the familiar trilling of a phone demanding attention. He gave the text a momentary glace before moving toward the door. ‘Excuse me, I should get back. Oh, and Stroud?’

‘Hmm?’ Stroud looked up and Yuki saw concern flash across his usually placid face.

‘I’ll send out an APB for the guy on the security tape, and pass this on to the federal authorities. Biological hazards are their jurisdiction, but I’ll try to oversee as much of the case as I can.’

With that, he disappeared into the hallway, the door closing behind him with an audible thud. Yuki immediately rounded on Stroud; anything that could squeeze concern out of his stony composure set off immediate alarm bells.

‘What did you mean, biological hazard?’ She demanded before he could try to steer the conversation to something more mundane.

The doctor sighed, leaning against the desk and adjusting his glasses. ‘I assume you saw the damage in the lobby?’ She nodded. ‘Well, someone broke in to the lab while the protestors were busy ruining the furniture in the main

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facility. They got as far as the inner labs and managed to steal some samples.

Hard to see on the tapes, but it looked like one of the newer GRA strains. If they could replicate the structure …’ he trailed off, brow furrowing. ‘Never mind. I shouldn’t be discussing this with patients, anyway. How about we talk about the real reason I called you in and try to put this business behind us?’

Deflection. Another red flag.

‘Stroud, should I be worried? You’ve got a swarm of police downstairs, a parking lot full of angry protestors calling us both monsters on the best of days, and now you’re telling me there’s some dangerous chemical out there in the world and that I should just ignore the problem?’ They weren’t friends, not exactly, but she thought they were close enough that he’d at least tell her if something would put her or her family in danger. ‘Talk to me, please. Are we safe?’

‘Yuki …’ Stroud removed his glasses, the dark lines under his eyes evident as he scrunched his face into his hands. He’d never looked particularly well-rested, but this was the worst Yuki had ever seen him. ‘Yes. Yes, you’re safe. Everyone’s safe. The GRA strain that was stolen is useless without an expert in genetics. In the best case, this is vandalism, and in the worst case, industrial espionage. Either way, this day has been nothing but stressful and

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I’d like to get back to something normal. Routine. So please, can we just pretend like it’s any other day, and start the session as we normally would?’ ‘… Okay,’ Yuki relented. Stroud was nothing if not stubborn, and he was clearly done sharing.

Stroud reached across his desk, picking up a pen and paper. Settling into the routine that the two had established over the last three years, he pressed a button on a small tape recorder on his desk. ‘Subject 57, Yuki Azuma. March 3rd, 2030. Session number …’

‘134.’

‘Really? Time flies. So, Miss Azuma, how are you adjusting to being genetically female?’ Yuki rolled her eyes. ‘And please, just be honest. This is still a new field, and there are no wrong answers.’

Yuki settled in her chair. It was going to be a long day. ‘I guess it’s the hardest around family, you know? I know they love me, after all, I’m still their kid. But every so often, I catch a look out of the corner of my eye.

I’m doing something boring and normal, like folding laundry or buttering a piece of toast, and I look up and see Mum staring. Just for a second.

As soon as our eyes meet she pretends she wasn’t looking, and I guess I

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pretend I didn’t notice. She looks at me, and I can tell she’s wondering. Am I really her kid? She raised a boy, her precious little son, and I’ve just gone and replaced him. That kind of look. Like she wonders if I really have my memories, or if I’m just someone they replaced him with partway through the treatment, when they thought she wouldn’t notice. I guess sometimes I feel like a stranger in my own house.’

‘How so?’

‘I found a box of my old stuff today. Toys, books, games. The scooter that I’d somehow managed to run over my own toe, years ago. Junk. And boys’ clothes. And that’s when I realised it. Boys’ clothes. I didn’t think, “Hey, this is my shirt, cool!” I looked at that box of old fabric and thought, just for a second, they must belong to my brother, or a neighbour’s kid. Wasn’t until I pulled out that frayed red shirt with the polar bear on it that I realised it was one of those old favourites that everyone has from their childhood.

Specifically, from my childhood. So I took it out to Mum to ask why she hadn’t thrown it out already and she burst into tears. And I’m left there, feeling like I just got punched in the gut.’

Yuki noticed Stroud scribbling something on the notepad, breaking her concentration. She felt like that wasn’t really fair to say, even if it was the

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truth.

‘Not that it isn’t great that I get to be with them, or anything!’ She quickly added, ‘I love them, and I love spending time with them. It’s just that I feel like I have to be on my guard with them sometimes. At first, everyone was very supportive, even encouraging me when I wasn’t sure this was the step I wanted to take. But the last year or so, now that things have started really developing, I’m not so sure they’re happy with it.’

‘And what about you? Are you happy?’

Yuki considered this. In a way, every session had ended with this question.

And at this point, three years in, she felt like she had given every possible answer. She still hadn’t decided what to do with her new life. She wasn’t sure how to handle her responsibilities as a potential mother in a species that was facing an ever-increasing panic at their own sterility. Even after all this time, it was still hard to separate how she felt about herself from this sense of obligation.

Early on, she had been ecstatic at seeing her body change before her. She still felt that way, but sometimes it was almost like she was losing herself. Like as she changed, less and less of the old Yuki remained in this world. And the idea of that scared her stiff. On the good days, however, when she could be by 210

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herself and not worry about other people or the rest of the world, it simply felt … right.

The rest of the time, she found herself somewhere in between. In transition. In flux.

‘… Yeah, for the most part I guess I take it day by day. It’s weird. When all

this started, I thought it’d be like becoming a completely new person, but that’s not really the case. I’m still me, just …’

‘Better?’ Stroud suggested, a wry smile warming his tired face.

Yuki laughed. An intense, happy chuckle that made her sides hurt and her eyes water. The first in longer than she’d have liked to admit. Stroud never could read the mood.

‘Not better, no. But different. Almost like two people at once. The old me, and the new. A boy, in a girl, in boys’ clothes.’

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212

JADE MITCHELL

The Waiting Room Snick, snick, snick, snick.

The nurse’s shoes make an odd sound against the linoleum as she leads

you through the hallway. It’s all white. White walls, white floor, white ceiling.

She opens a door and gestures you inside with a smile.

Even her teeth are white.

You stand just in the doorway as she bustles in. In the small room the

starch smell of cleanliness is strong in your nose.

The nurse takes a hospital coat—or is it a gown?—from the table and

turns to hand it to you. You take it, your pulse rushing through your veins, and the scratchy blue material hangs limp from your hand.

‘I’ll leave you to get changed,’ she says, ‘the doctor will be with you in a

moment.’

She smiles again, white teeth flashing, kind eyes crinkling. Your hands 213

clench around the blue coat-gown as you nod, unable to get the words out of your throat to ask how long, exactly, the doctor will be, or if she’s sure you’ve filled out all the necessary forms. Doesn’t she need your Medicare card?

But she leaves while your throat is still stuck, the door clicking shut behind

her. You are alone.

You wait.

The saliva in your mouth grows thick. You think of the little white cups

sitting on the table next to the white water machine in the white waiting room.

The first waiting room. The one where you sat for fifteen minutes after your appointment was scheduled, steadily avoiding the other patients’ gazes and thinking steadfastly about dinner until your name is called and you are lead to your room.

A small, empty, white, room.

You lick your lips and swallow.

Take a deep breath. Hold it. And release. Good.

There are two chairs in the corner—one looks like it’s for the doctor—

with its odd shape and its spindly wheels. You drop your bag and the coatgown onto the other, stationary chair. You remember that you have to change 214

JADE MITCHELL

before the doctor comes and pick the coat-gown back up.

Checking both doors, the one you came through, and the other door—

the one for the doctor that is not quite closed—you take another breath and strip off, praying you haven’t waited too long.

Your heart beats staccato, making you fumble as you pull the coat-gown

on backwards. You curse softly, pulling it back off and righting the blue fabric around you. The strings knot together tight and you take another breath, closing your eyes.

They flash open as the silence weighs in around you. You swallow again

and wait.

There’s a clock on the wall. You can hear the steady progress of the hands

ticking their endless trek around and around and around and you wonder where the hands were when you first entered. Was it on the two or the three?

You can’t remember.

You fiddle with the fabric on the gown and look around again.

There’s a table lined with more blue coat-gowns, towels—all white—and

other bits of plastic and paper that you don’t know the purpose of. The bed is opposite the table.

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White sheets, white pillow, white paper.

You look at the paper, laid down on the bed as protection from

something, though you don’t know what.

Do you stand or sit?

The machine the doctor will surely prod you with is by the bed. You take

a step in that direction and then pause.

There are voices beyond the door. A man’s voice and a lady’s laugh. No-

one enters the room though, and you shiver, hug yourself, your shoulders curling inward as you give yourself a squeeze.

‘Don’t be silly,’ you say to yourself and let your arms fall to your side.

Then you freeze as the sound seems to echo in the white space, making it

seem both bigger and smaller. You swallow again and sit down on the edge of the bed.

Now what?

You think it this time. Speaking aloud is too personal.

Now you debate if you should lie down. No, you decide. Lying down

would feel silly when you’re all alone.

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And so you wait.

Your hand twitches and your fingers curl around the thin blue fabric

you’ve been asked to wear. You wonder what it’s made from. The material is light and offers no warmth. You run a hand along the hem, fingers brushing along the paper cover underneath. Maybe that’s why they put the paper down on the bed, so patients can’t scrunch up the sheets while they wait.

Your arm twitches with a sudden desire to tear the paper away that you

shake off. Instead you glance over at your bag, sitting on the chair a metre and a half away. You could be reading your book, or playing a game, or on Facebook.

Someone moves beyond the door and you become still again, ears ringing

in the silence. No one enters though and you sigh. Should you get your phone?

Without it you are left alone with your thoughts. Though, the doctor surely isn’t far away now.

You drum your fingers on the bed and bite your lip. It sounds odd, your

fingers sliding against the paper cover on the bed.

More voices beyond the door, but still no one enters.

More waiting.

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217

The lights are bright. There are no shadows. You wish there were.

Shadows would give you some place to hide. Instead there is only white, and you’re stuck under the illumination, exposed and alone.

You wish the doctor would hurry up.

You wish you had gotten your phone.

Silence.

The room is on the cusp of coolness, not quite a pleasant temperature,

and you pull the gown tighter and check the knot.

Why do the walls have to be white? Why can’t there be any colour? Any

substance? Something better to focus on. Instead there is only white. White walls, white floors and white sheets and you’re lost in all the white.

You think about getting up for your phone again. You roll your eyes, not

quite exasperated. You’re too exposed. You sigh and tense to get up but at that instance you hear footsteps beyond the door, freezing you in place. The door swings inwards and your breath whooshes out.

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You are no longer waiting.

JADE MITCHELL

THE WAITING ROOM

219

Outro Outro /ˈaʊtrəʊ/ noun – The concluding section of a piece of music or a radio or television program.

In the beginning, we as a Collective searched through the piles of student authors looking for certain words, the right messages. For that special something that we as individuals could connect to. Now that the words are done there is only the end—the end of the stories, the end of this anthology, the end of this Collective.

Conclusion /kənˈkluːʒ(ə)n/ noun –1. The end or finish of an event, process, or text. 2. The formal and final arrangement of an agreement: the conclusion of a free-trade.

Now we leave the fruit of the semester’s labour, which we have fought over, stressed about, lost sleep for, messaged and shared together for the last few months. All those who look at Within Without will say this is what the University of the Sunshine Coast can do.

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Wrap Up /ˈræpˌʌp/ noun –1. A final report or summary: a wrap-up of the evening news. 2. The conclusion or final result: the wrap-up of the election campaign.

But fear not, this is not our final goodbye. The Collective’s messages will resonate within you any time you think of love in all its complicated forms, when you face trials and errors, grieve for those you’ve lost, feel anxiety in the face of the unknown, and hope for the future.

After all, we are all human.

End /ɛnd/ noun –1. The concluding part. verb –1. To bring to an end or natural conclusion. verb 2. To come to an end; terminate; cease.

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blurb / bləːb/ noun

A short description of a book.

Within Without is innovative, unique and exciting.

This anthology is the fourth produced by the Creative Writing Students of the University of the Sunshine Coast.

Within Without breaks new ground offering up a collection of short stories and for the first time, an illustrated book and inclusive microfiction insert. You are invited to step through 28 wondrous windows into the inspired world of creative writing. Thematically this anthology sits anywhere between the ‘human condition’ and ‘family’.

We hope we will inspire, entertain and challenge you. Pit Stop may make you feel uncomfortable, Antique may cause you to remember and you will relate to Mind your Manners. Enter into the world of Peggy Jones and experience the thrill of The Swing, the anxiety of The Waiting Room and experience a story of friendship and mortality that will touch your heart with Wilson and Me. We urge you to find a quiet corner to read and reflect. Come and join us in the magic land of somewhere else.

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