Woroni Mag Ed 3 2025 Delirium

Delirium

Woroni Vol 75 no. 3

cover Art by en-mai

TV

Paris Chia

Katherine Page

Soffia Abbygale Baynosa

Elisa Zheng

Vanya Napitupulu

Kristy Sauw

Content

Hannah Bachelard

Caelan Doel

Remi Lynch

Brooke Corkhill

Maya Haggstrom

India Kazakoff

Em Murry

Jaden Ogwayo

Atputha Rahavan

Sai Woebking

Ethan Zhu

Emanuel Foundas

Chiara Hackney-Britt

Anuva Rai

Michael Reid

Shivagha Sindhamani Pathak

Ruken Zeyto

Communications

Henry Carls

Benjamin Van Der Niet

Lekh Bhatia

Radio

Alexander An

Grace Williams

Lucy Gabbay

Aamra Chandra

Frederika Phibbs

Jessica Heller

Cameron Upton

Punit Deshwal Art

Amanda Lim

Brandon Sung

Sara Duble

En-mai Miao

Avery Lam To

Jemima Woodman

Fiona Bao News

Charlie Crawford

Kaab Qureshi

Hannah Benhassine

Adriano Di Matteo

Elinor Hudson

Saboor Cheema

David Back

Bella Wang

Jack Davis

Cate Armstrong

There’s no better representation of delirium than that feeling you get midway through the year — suspended between the dread of your end-of-semester to-do list and the hope that maybe, just maybe, next semester will finally be your academic weapon semester.

Writing this letter for Woroni’s third magazine of 2025 — in the midst of exams, unfinished assignments, and the menacing glow of the Turnitin portal — I find myself in that very state of delirium. The countdown to the end of my time at uni, and as Radio Editor, feels both far too near and impossibly distant. I want to race to the end, open my eyes and simply arrive on the other side, while also wanting to slow down the clock — to live suspended in the moments that ground me, in the delirium I get to share with those around me.

Delirium is a word that continues to define this year. It bleeds into the political, the personal and the professional. It’s there in our fear and fascination with the chaos of world news, in navigating complexities of our relationships, in wondering if anyone actually watches the video interviews you spent hours perfecting before sending them into the void. It’s in the disorientation, the excitement and the overwhelm, the feeling of time racing forward whether we want it to or not.

This edition is a testament to that feeling. A collection of voices who know what it’s like to sit in the haze of deadlines and daydreams, to feel both inspired and impossibly stuck. Proof that even in chaos we can still create.

Delirium, after all, isn’t just confusion. It’s the excitement of a latenight study session; the smell of popcorn and the laughter of friends you can’t decide is from sleep deprivation or comedic genius. It’s the joyful disorientation we’re privileged to share. As students, here at the ANU, we are meant to indulge each other’s delirium — picking up a magazine filled with the stories of our peers.

So as you begin reading, I invite you to immerse yourself in that feeling, in the sounds, stories, and delirium we all share.

Thank you to our artists, writers, and of course, the Board of Editors — without whom Woroni would not be possible, and my own delirium would not have felt as sweet. Thank you to Mir Niejalke, our Art Editor, and Aala Cheema, our Content Editor, for bringing it all to life. And thank you, our readers, for being part of it all.

We hope you’ll share your delirium with us, with each other — to find a little more meaning in the madness, a little more joy in the dissociation.

by avery

Art

A Sector In Crisis - UTS and WSU Follow ANU’s Lead In Major Cuts and Restructures

By David Back

With the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) and Western Sydney University (WSU) announcing major budget restructures in the past few weeks, it is clear that the entire Australian University sector is in crisis as repeated deficits are catching up with management, and jobs and courses start to disappear.

UTS has affirmed its decision to impose its controversial budget cuts, initially announced last November. This significant budgetary move aims to cut 400 jobs and $100 million in expenditure, despite debate over their necessity given a lack of transparency on its current deficit. Similarly, WSU announced on 21 April that its projected deficit of $6.5 million would balloon to $79 million by 2026. In response, the University intends to cut another 400 staff over the next few years, including 25 percent of its senior leadership team.

This round of cuts follow the ANU’s own major restructuring, being the first domino to fall in the sector’s seemingly financial collapse. Students may have already began to feel the impacts of the $250 million of cuts in the University’s Renew ANU agenda, with higher parking fees, larger classrooms, and degree restructures, and for staff, less resources, higher workloads and their jobs themselves.

The combined restructuring agendas at nine separate Australian universities will result in the loss of 2,200 jobs, and $650 million from budgets. This follows an already significant downscaling across the sector following the start of the COVID pandemic.

Why is this happening?

The answer, as with everything, is complex and highly debated. The universities generally have blamed lower enrolment rates, and unclear Federal Government policy surrounding international students.

Domestic student enrolments have fallen in the past few years, with some 100,000 less students in bachelor degrees than the previous high in 2016, seen in part due to high fees. This was largely spurred on by contribution adjustments by the Morrison Government which placed a greater financial burden on students, and the relief provided for STEM and Nursing degrees has not resulted in significant enrolment increases.

Federal politics has additionally targeted international students recently, with both Labor and the Coalition supporting enrolment caps. The Coalition’s backflipping on the issue resulted in Labor’s reforms failing in Parliament last year, yet the Coalition continued to take it as an election policy. Whilst that bill failed, Labor seemingly has managed to, via ministerial directives, implement a de facto cap. With one of the highest proportional intakes of international students in the world, Australia’s university sector relies heavily on international students for funding who, on average, pay double the amount of a domestic student. At ANU in particular, international students make up approximately a third of the cohort.

The National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU), whilst not denying the situation, has been scathing in its criticism of the sector’s leaders, arguing they are overestimating external pressures to make up for governance failings, and that current austerity measures will gut the sector. In response to the UTS cuts, the NSW Secretary of the NTEU, Vince Caughley, stated that it was “…another example of the governance failures and lack of accountability that have become entrenched in Australian universities”. UTS has notably refused to provide transparency on its cuts, and with the aim of producing a $96 million surplus, many staff are dissatisfied with leadership and regard the cuts as unnecessary.

More broadly, the NTEU claims that the entire sector has been heavily corporatised, and its financial reliance and turbulence amidst lowering enrolments, specifically for international students, is symptomatic of a broader trend of these institutions being treated as profitable corporate entities, rather than important public education and research centres.

Is there anything being done about it?

Major university reform was largely avoided in the Albanese Government’s first term, and neither major party took structural reform to the election last week. Primarily, universities have recently been used as a talking point against international students and antisemitism on campuses. Labor appears to remain committed to their international student caps going into their second term, and have promised a 20 percent cut to all HECS debt as part of its first major legislative agenda upon its return to Parliament. Additionally, Education Minister Jason Clare has committed to implementing more of the recommendations in the Universities Accord report, but details of this are limited.

The primary pressure for reform has come from the NTEU’s successful push for a Senate Inquiry into University Governance. The Inquiry’s interim report has flagged a number of the aforementioned governance issues, such as corporatisation and a lack of transparency. The final report, due in August, may prompt a much needed policy response.

Campus Perspective: Study Debunks Link Between International Students

and Rising Rents

By Adriano Di Matteo and Saboor Cheema

An investigation from the University of South Australia published in January of this year has concluded that international students are not to blame for rising rents and the ever-looming national housing crisis.

Government data, including the changes in rent prices and the level of international students nationally from the Australian Bureau of Statistics between 2017 and 2024, was scrutinised at 76 different time points. The research specifically focuses on pre and post-COVID analysis, and demonstrates that fluctuations in international student numbers did not correlate with rises in overall rent costs.

Only four percent of Australia’s rental properties are inhabited by foreign students.

The report emphasised that institutions should not be “scapegoating international students for the rental crisis”.

The findings sit amongst a recent political context where housing and international students have been seen as a major policy issue, in combination with the ongoing high cost of living. Recently, the Liberal/ National Coalition promised to cap international student enrollments at 240,000 per year, 30,000 fewer than the Labor Government’s proposal in 2024. This is contrasted by the Greens’ policy to scrap international student limits.

Across campus, Woroni interviewed some international students about their feelings on the subject.

Director of ANU Centre for Social Research and Methods, Professor Matthew Gray, informed staff in an email last month that this year’s budget for casual and sessional staff had been reduced by about twothirds, from $160,000 to $53,467.

Students were asked how they feel about being blamed for the housing crisis. When asked, the International Student Representative, Seungbin Kang stated, “A lot of international students are on campus, and they feel unsupported when they move off campus. No international students are buying houses — most of them struggle to get by day to day. Nice people on campus see through the government’s messaging. But step outside and you can see the difference in the way people act towards you and how surprised they are when [they learn] you are from overseas.”

In an open staff meeting earlier this Semester, the NTEU reported that confidential documents outlining job cuts to one of the University’s key corporate areas had been left out in a lunchroom. The documents show that consultancy firm NOUS is behind the proposal for job cuts. The document suggested cutting the marketing division of 38 full-time equivalent (FTE) employees by 50 percent.

ANU has announced a voluntary separation scheme (VSS) for three weeks from 25 February 2025, which the NTEU has considered a win in its campaign against the job cuts. Through VSS, eligible staff are able to voluntarily opt into separating from the University.

Another student stated, “I have seen a lot of rude posts online about how international students should go back. It’s disheartening. It’s quite tricky finding a place off campus. Real estate agents are not willing to rent to international students that much; it took one month to find my current place.”

This allows staff the opportunity to voluntarily resign and receive payments under their separation package instead of being “tapped on the shoulder” — being made redundant amid $250 million in annual cost cuts, said ACT Branch Secretary Dr Lachlan Clohesy.

A third-year BnG student commented on the changing of stigma nationwide, “Maybe if the economy improves, people will stop blaming us. I feel like after COVID, the sentiment in society has gotten more and more negative about international students. People just think we are taking jobs away from them, and this trend will continue on for a while. I feel sorry for new international students.”

Dr Clohesy continued, “Obviously, nobody likes job losses, but it’s much better with voluntary redundancies where those that want to go are able to go and those that want to have a better chance of staying.”

Students share their concerns:

Woroni spoke to students across ANU regarding any concerns they had about the cuts.

Florence, a third-year Law and Economics student expressed their concerns with their “very limited elective choices being cut”. Florence continued;

Some students expressed that the report’s results will likely not change perceptions, with one student stating, “people who are set in their ways will still continue to blame international students”.

“There were already not a lot of economic choices to fulfil my degree.”

Students interviewed spoke of still feeling a significant disconnect between current and past political messaging, and their establishment in Australia. It remains to be seen if federal policy changes will be able to affect that.

Cyan, a second-year Law and International Relations student voiced his concerns regarding ANU’s quality of education explaining, “Courses are disappearing, class sizes are growing, and overworked staff are struggling to teach effectively, all while executives protect their inflated salaries.”

He continued,

“Morale is at an all-time low, and it’s clear that instead of investing in students and staff, the university has chosen financial expediency.”

Another student who wished to remain anonymous told Woroni they felt disappointed, saying;

Where the Hell is the Daley Road Bus?

By Kaab Qureshi

Call me a radical leftist, but I believe ANU students deserve the right to accessible and convenient public transport, especially the thousands of students who live across Daley Road. In 2019, Transport Canberra (TC) decided to stop the 3 bus, which connected Daley Road to City and Belconnen.

This was part of a greater change to the TC bus network, with the route cut justified by the Minister for Transport, Chris Steel, due to it being “very poorly patronised.” ANU Security’s night bus and shuttle bus both also ceased running services in the last couple of years. This has left thousands on Daley Road in a ‘black zone’ for public transport.

In a further assault to campus connectivity, ANU announced a price hike last year for on-campus parking for students, increasing rates by 510 per cent. ANU had previously mentioned that the parking increases support its “commitment to broader sustainability goals” such as ”promoting alternative transportation modes.”

Legislative Assembly member, Thomas Emerson, has advocated for a Daley Road bus in the ACT Legislative Assembly, and told Woroni, “I’m supportive of reducing car dependency in our city but sticks need to be accompanied by carrots. The way we get people out of cars is through ambitious investment in attractive public and active transport options.”

He continued, “Transport poverty is a growing concern. If we don’t ensure students have access to reliable, affordable, efficient forms of transportation, what will be the impact on the diversity of ANU’s student body?”

Late last year, perhaps to sweeten the announcement of the increase to parking costs, the ANU announced that a bus service would be in the works for 2025, with “two electric buses to solely serve the ANU campus from the city main bus interchange.”

However just days later, the ANU changed its wording, seemingly pulling away from their previous announcement. The new announcement removed the details and the estimate of when the service would be functional.

Email correspondence sent on 2 October 2024 between an ANU student and a TC staff member stated that, “Transport Canberra are not undertaking a Feasibility Study or investigating the provision of two electric buses to service the ANU from the City Interchange”.

The TC staff member continued, “ANU road network infrastructure does not provide a compliant or safe environment for the standard sized TC buses to operate.” Emerson said that he found it “disappointing to see that ANU may have misrepresented the status of potential bus routes servicing its campus in an attempt to dampen pushback on its massive parking cost hikes.”

Documents attained through a Freedom of Information request revealed communications between the ANU and TC regarding a Daley Road bus, with the ANU Chief Communications Officer, Steven Fanner, admitting that a bus service was a “recurring issue for our student population”.

The emails also showed Jeremy Matthew, Director of the ANU’s Facilities and Services Division, acknowledging that the ANU was “in desperate need of providing solid public transport options for our large community.”

The plan roughly included two electric buses that were “slightly smaller” than regular TC buses, similar to the Ginninderry shuttle, that would, “navigate through Garran road, onto ward then onto Daley Road, then onto North Road and then Barry Drive”, and eventually link to the city interchange.

ANUSA Welfare officer Kiera Rosenberg told Woroni that her and President Will Burfoot had met with Transport Minister Steel to discuss “transport issues students are facing.” She mentioned the logistical struggles of having a Daley Road bus, including the road size, bus logistics, and the questions of whether it “would have sustainable ridership.”

As Daley Road is deemed difficult for bus drivers to navigate, Rosenberg proposed a potential solution by “circumventing that area around the Daley Road precinct and law buildings altogether and perhaps have a bus route which drops people near the RSSS.”

Rosenberg also highlighted the importance of providing students on campus with access to public transport, given the challenges associated with having to “walk through dark, poorly lit areas before they actually get to the main areas of campus” along with broader “accessibility issues.”

However, as the RSSS building is over 600 metres away from Daley Road, her proposed solution may present significant challenges. The road in front of RSSS, Ellery Crescent, also ends with a tight roundabout, potentially also offering challenges for the physical fit of a TC bus.

The ANUSA Welfare officer also told Woroni, “There was discussion towards the end of last year around the potential for the bus to return; however, there has been no indications that the ANU is actively engaging on this front.”

Conversely, a spokesperson for the ANU has told Woroni that the university is in “ongoing discussions” with TC and the ACT Government regarding a new bus service, including “a meeting scheduled for next month.” As seen in the FOI disclosure, ANU’s announcement of a bus service to hopefully start this year, was only removed at the request of TC themselves.

It remains unclear whether ANU students will be getting a bus anytime soon. One can only hope that ANU and TC are able to work collaboratively to put students first, and ensure that a Daley Road bus can break through this bureaucracy.

Art by mir photography by claire bryce

Signs of Damage: In Conversation with Diana Reid

By Brooke Corkhill

In March 2025, Diana Reid, author of Love and Virtue, released her third novel, Signs of Damage. It follows the Kelly family on their idyllic French holiday, which is interrupted when Cass, their thirteen-year-old guest, goes missing. She is found alive and well several hours later, and those present dismiss the incident as a harmless blip. Sixteen years later, at a funeral for a member of the Kelly family, Cass collapses. As the past and the present begin to collide, secrets are brought to light and old doubts creep in. What really happened all those years ago, and could it reveal what is wrong with Cass now?

Set between two timelines, each with their own mystery, the novel investigates the difference between trying to explain other people and actually understanding them. I had the wonderful opportunity to ask Diana Reid some questions about this new book and her writing career.

Brooke Corkhill: I am such a fan of SignsofDamage! The ‘summer noir’ juxtaposition between dark events and idyllic settings is a powerful, eerie backdrop for the novel. Did you do any specific prep work to build this? What were your sources of inspiration?

Diana Reid: Thank you! My inspiration was novels and films that I love — all of which feature the eruption of violence in idyllic settings. It was only when I was halfway through writing Signs of Damage that I realised there was a term for it: summer noir. Those texts include the novels Swimming Home (Deborah Levy), Never Mind (Edward St Aubyn) and the French film The Swimming Pool, as well as Luca Guadanigno’s more recent remake, A Bigger Splash.

In terms of specific prep, I didn’t actually go to the south of France, which I regret. (It’s subsequently been pointed out to me that I could’ve had a tax-deductible holiday!) But I did a lot of research online: there is a specific villa on Booking.com which is where I imagine the Kelly family spent their holiday.

BC: The nuanced ensemble cast was so engaging to read! How did you create each character? Did you conceptualise their dynamics before their individual personalities?

DR: I never conceive of characters in isolation: the first germ of an idea is always a relationship between two people or groups of people. In this case, I thought about a wealthy family on an idyllic holiday with a few outsiders or ‘guests’ orbiting around them. Specifically, I started with the patriarch, Bruce Kelly, and his oldest friend, Harry: a single gay man. Thinking about characters in terms of dynamics — especially of ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’ — is always interesting to me because it enables you to explore their insecurities. Character, then, is not just about the surface-level of how people appear socially, but also about interiority; what they’re embarrassed by, what they’re trying to obscure, how they’d like to appear.

16.

BC: The past and present timelines, each containing their own mystery, weave in and out of different perspectives. Did this pose some plotting challenges? Did you enjoy the process, particularly as it differs from the structure of your first two novels?

DR: ‘Enjoyed’ would be putting it too highly but I definitely found the process rewarding. Inspiration, for me, lives at the outer edge of my comfort zone. I never want to go to the desk and mechanically repeat what I’ve done before. I always want to feel a bit of fear: to wonder whether I can pull it off. So this more complicated narrative was stressful initially because, as you say, I’d never done it before and it certainly took a lot of wrangling. But then it’s very rewarding when you prove to yourself that you can do it.

And it was also rewarding — not just in the ‘craft’ sense of expanding my skills as a writer — but also artistically, because I think this structure suits the story. In Signs of Damage, the characters are trying to understand the significance of a holiday they all shared 16 years ago. The events of that holiday are interwoven with the present-day. The reader, then, is undergoing the same process as the characters: they’re dipping in and out of the past, trying to identify patterns and draw connections between events.

BC: What did you want to explore around the themes of voice and storytelling, particularly as you feature competing narrative voices in this book?

DR: Signs of Damage is a novel about storytelling — about the stories we tell ourselves in order to make sense of the world around us. So I always knew it wouldn’t have an omniscient narrator. Instead, I wanted to emphasise the limitations of an individual’s perspective: the impossibility of ever seeing the whole story. The bulk of the narrative is told in several competing perspectives in the third person, which allows the reader to decide who they believe. Then it’s framed (in a prologue and an epilogue) by one character’s first-person perspective. This was to deliberately frustrate the reader. I wanted to cast doubt on the “truth” of the whole story. Is it, perhaps, a projection told by one character? Does that matter? Does this story — does any story — need to be true to have emotional resonance?

BC: Your Guardian article, “The trauma plot: how did culture get addicted to tragic backstories?” is a powerful extension of your novel. I was struck by your question “why do we keep looking to trauma as shorthand to better understand character, when it invariably proves such an unsatisfactory tool, one that flattens and obscures where we rely on it to clarify and complicate?” Do you have any theories about this? What made you want to explore and subvert the trauma plot?

Art by fiona

DR: No doubt the ‘trauma plot’ has gained so much cultural purchase because it is a useful tool for understanding other people. Most people are shaped, in some capacity, by negative experiences and learning about these experiences can provide deep psychological insight. However, if I have a theory, it’s that being able to tell our own story about our lives — to decide for ourselves the significance of certain events, be they positive or negative — is the cornerstone of autonomy. This was also a big theme in my first book, Love & Virtue, so it’s clearly a preoccupation of mine. I see curiosity about people’s core wounds or formative traumas as very natural — even, empathetic. But I’m interested in the point at which that curiosity becomes a fixation. To my mind, that shift occurs when we stop listening to someone else’s story and start imposing our own, taking the events of their life and fitting them into narratives that we’re familiar with, like the trauma plot.

BC: Do you practice any other art besides writing? If so, does that art ever tie into your writing, or is it entirely separate?

DR: It’s hardly an art because I have no flair with it, but I do love to cook. I think of it almost as an antidote to writing. When you’ve spent a whole day labouring over words that you might hate and delete in the morning, it’s nice to get to dinner time and ‘create’ something to completion.

BC: When did you know you wanted to be a writer?

DR: I always wanted to be an actor. Writing for theatre was actually my first experience of creative writing: I wrote plays and sketches at university. In fact, I took a gap year after university and deferred a graduate job in corporate law to try to make a career in theatre work. That was in 2020 so lockdown put an end to those plans and I wrote Love & Virtue instead. I realised then that a lot of what I loved about acting (wondering what it’s like to be someone else; the rhythm of good dialogue, etc.) could be found in fiction.

BC: If you could give any advice to aspiring writers, what would it be?

DR: Don’t worry about whether it’s any good! If you just write it, you can always go back and edit it later. But if you let perfectionism or the fear of what other people might think paralyse you, then you’ll never write anything.

Signs of Damage is out now and certainly worth a read, if you’re looking for a suspenseful, nuanced thriller.

Cucumber Salad and Robins

By Maya Drinkwater

How can I ever describe that feeling?

Of losing you while you still stood right in front of me. Water slipping through my fingers and pooling in some strange puddle on the floor. For any time I wished for an end to our conversations; Forgive me.

g:

Cucumber salad to accompany dinner. She winces at the first bite. I frown and look down; Something is wrong.

m:

Cucumber salad. Risky.

She’s confused the zucchini again.

I can’t hide my distaste at the flavour.

Another mouthful reveals the red breast of the Robin decorating the plates. He mocks me as I struggle.

g: She looks slightly bored as I ask,

“How was your day?”

A perfunctory “it was good” accompanied by a pained smile is the response. I glance out the window. Nodding.

A Robin flitters past the window.

m:

She asks again, I respond, again. For me, a tiring carousel, but for her, I must remember, the first time.

A bird steals her focus.

g:

The woman beside my bed insists,

“It’s me.”

“Don’t you remember me?”

The room doesn’t feel familiar

And now I can’t think of anything that does

m: She can’t meet my eyes.

Distracted by the birds dancing across the bed sheets, I can’t bring myself to beg her for her memory.

I have lost her,

And yet this woman with her face and her voice sits before me. Now we are strangers with the same eyes.

Art by mir

By Jyotiraditya Sanand

Hidden beneath

The warmth of a smile

I struggle to breathe

As I fall unseen.

I fall unseen

Lying lifeless

In the swamps of my mind

I gratify my senses

I fall unseen

Crumbling into Infinitesimal pieces

Of my consciousness alive

I fall unseen

Numb to the Wounds endured

As I plummet deep

I fall unseen

To the unabated plunder

By my evil senses

I accept defeat

I fall unseen

With an unprecedented speed

To reach the land

Of weakness and misery

I fall unseen

And my memories flash

As death moves closer

And takes my hand

I fall unseen

But I am caught

By the love of my parents

And the Gods above.

Art by mir

By Grace Williams

Hi, how are you?

oh my god, what is this person’s name again?

Oh look at that tree it’s the one grandma keeps going on about! (ch-ch-ch-ch-changes!) you’ve met them like four times grace, you should know it by now! (turn and face the strange!) it’s fine, we’ll look it up on facebook later.

What’s it called again? wys-, wise-

I’m great thanks! that’s too enthusiastic, grace! how many fence posts are in that house behind her? It seems like that fence is really crowded.

How’ve you been?

nice save. you’re being appropriately inquisitive there.

(ch-ch-chaanngess) wiss-, woss-, wooze-

Here and there I guess. Martin’s been working on… who’s martin again?

one, two, three, four, five, six jesus christ, focus! you’re being impolite!

(don’t wanna be a richer man) isn’t the whole concept of ‘politeness’ like antifeminist or something now? eleven, twelve, thirteen

…and of course they can’t do the skirting boards until the wall’s resealed… (time may change me!) remember when they did a version of this on horrible histories?

twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-seven Wisteria! That’s it!

(but I can’t chase time!)

…anyway, it’s all resolved itself now. smile and nod, smile and nod thirty-three, thirty-four

I’ll have to take a photo for grandma, How’ve you been doing at school? how do you answer that again?

(mmmmmm, yeah) do i get into what i’ve actually been doing or? she loves this kind of stuff. like do i talk in-depth about the essay i’m writing or — forty-one, forty-two, forty-three nope, that can’t be it…

Oh it’s fine. Classes are going well. classes are going well!? what does that even mean!? and my job has been fun since I started. can you even call it a job if you’re not paid until the end of semester? When can I get that photo? fifty-seven, fifty eight

(i watch the ripples change their size) i mean i did get hired for it sixty, sixty-one, sixty-two, sixty-three

She’s always talking about the twisted branches, and i have bosses and hours and stuff that’s a good band name, twisted branches… sixty-five, sixty-six (but they never leave the stream) Maybe we should get a new tree for our garden. (of warm impermanence and) what does impermanence mean?

Hey, you seem a bit distracted, is everything okay?

Fairyland

By Chiara Hackney-Britt

Sitting beside the glistening stream, we put the finishing touches on our crowns. I add one more rose and you ask the purple butterfly to move a little to the right; it abides. The lush scent of roses and lilies and wisteria and our laughter infuses the warm evening air. A breeze washes through the forest and a small bird twitters sweetly as it brings its chicks their meal.

“Come on now,” I say, fixing my crown upon my flowing hair. “We should make haste.”

We spread our wings, delicate, translucent and oh so beautiful, and ascend into the rosy sky, making our way towards the royal castle. I am the Fairy of the Flowers, and you are the Fairy of the Butterflies, and we are tonight noble guests at the Fairy Queen’s Midsummer Gala Ball. There shall be dancing and guests from distant lands and bubbly peach drinks to savour, and we have been excited about this for months.

The castle sits on the crest of the greatest mountain in the realm and looks over all the lands. The walls of the castle are made of pure magic, and the hues of the evening are reflected in the shimmering arches and turrets. The gala ball will be held on the pavilion, a magnificent outcrop that hovers on the edge of a precipice, far above the river overlooking everything from the Great Forest to the Plains of Glittergrass, which shimmer in the last rays of the sun as a breath of breeze whispers over them. Unicorns gallop in the distance and a pegasus flies through a golden ray of sunlight.

Just as the sun sinks, making way for the onset of lilac nighttime, we alight gently on the front steps of the castle, our dresses settling around our legs. The tremendous front doors are flung open in welcome for the guests, lanterns made of gigantic tulip heads filled with flitting fireflies softly light the path to the door. We walk through with the other guests and emerge into the Great Hall. By our crowns — mine of fresh blooms, and yours of butterflies who have sacrificed their evening to sit dutifully upon your head — we are immediately recognisable and are greeted by many of our fellow fairies. We walk all the way through the Hall, curtseying to faces old and new, to where a wall of glass doors open onto the pavilion.

It is beautiful, isn’t it? The moon is already shining full and silver above us in the deep purple sky, the stars hovering in their thousands as if they wished to descend and mingle with the rest of us. The pillars and balustrades are slung with garlands of ripe fruit — peaches, pomegranates, raspberries, pineapple. Fireflies drift around and magical orbs capture moonlight and reflect it onto the pavilion in rays of pink and blue light. These rays catch on our sparkly shoes as we walk towards the Fairy Queen so that we can pay our respects.

She sits, resplendent upon a silver throne engraved with fairies and fruits. She wears a gown that can only be described as iridescent which glides between indigo and silver and apricot and periwinkle whenever she moves. “Fairy of the Flowers,” she acknowledges, and I bow my head. “Fairy of the Butterflies. Thank you so much for joining us this evening and thank you for your part in the decorations. They are very fine flowers, and I have received compliments on the beautiful butterflies.” One flutters by your nose, drawn to its mistress, your face tickled by its wing, and you giggle. We both give one more deep curtsey to the Queen, and then move aside so that the next people can greet her.

Every year, she does something marvellous at the end of the evening. In the meantime, we dance with the other fairies, twirling around in our flowy skirts, fluttering upwards on occasion as we take dances into the air. We dine on fruit salad, delicate kernels of pomegranate bursting sweetly upon our tongues. We wash it down with peach drink that fizzes in our mouths. Guests are delighted as you perform tricks with your willing butterflies and children are overjoyed when, with a single touch, I turn the small buds they bring me into full blooming flowers. We laugh and dance and sing with all the other fairies for hours, enjoying the warm air and soft moonlight on our skin.

And now for the part of the evening that everyone has been waiting for. The Queen stands slowly, regally, arms spread out in the beautiful gown to either side of her. Immediately a hush falls over the crowd. She gives a small smile, closes her eyes, and tilts her head back, the diamonds on her crown sparkling.

Suddenly we sense a great glittering above our heads, and we look up, startled — only to be immediately delighted. For the stars are twinkling, brighter, more brilliant, and then drifting down in their thousands from the sky to join the crowd of fairies on the pavilion. I laugh and run my fingers through the brilliance, looking over at you just as stars drift past your face and reflect in your eyes for a brief instant. For one perfect moment, the stars dwell among the fairies, gently brushing our faces and wings before peacefully dissipating. We all burst into rapturous applause for our Queen and look up, astounded to see that despite the spectacle, the stars miraculously appear just as they did before.

Our applause dies down as your mum calls us into the kitchen to set the table for dinner. Oh well. We can always play again tomorrow. The Fairy Queen, the Midsummer Gala, the river, the glittergrass, the perfect sky are never far from mind.

Would you come with me to Fairyland again someday?

Coda

By Ethan Zhu

A small window frames the spiralling leaves of Plagwitz in Autumn. In the corner of the darkened room, her husband lies sleeping on a metal cot frame, sedated by the apothecary’s remedies. The asylum’s doctors had written to say that he may not make it through the night.

She thought wryly to herself, he always hated final movements.

Soon, there would be his funeral to organise; she would need to send couriered notes to the Archbishop and the Mayor of Leipzig. Crowds will spill onto the streets as the coffin of Robert Schumann passes towards the Cathedral. She will be expected, like any Protestant Saxon widow, to lift her veil before the coffin. The parishioners — the good burghers of the city — will expect her tears to show more than simple wifely devotion. They must testify to the love that inspired him. She will play the role of the muse, as in the old Grecian verses Robert and his friends adored.

Sitting in this dark cell, listening to his rasping breaths, Clara expects grief to arrive — a heavy, forceful crescendo. But as she contemplates life without this man, she feels nothing like a weight lifted out of the air after the last note is played, the slightest vibrations that echo after a moment of release.

During Robert’s long stay at the asylum, she had grown accustomed to the quiet of the house at Inselstrasse. Once it would have been filled with the music of two duelling pianos; she taught pupils in the sitting room while Robert composed in the study. Her private lessons, legendary at the local conservatories, had purchased this house before Robert achieved his fame.

In the summers, she would scrub the floors, beat the intricate rugs, and polish the silverware for their Saturday afternoon salons. She never relished the role of hostess: circulating among the chatter, filling glasses of Riesling, offering subtle apologies for her husband’s occasionally erratic behaviour.

Now she spent evenings by candlelight on the chaise-lounge, reading a leatherbound book of yellowed, fraying pages. Robert presented it to her the day after their engagement; a shared diary to get two shy, stiff court musicians to speak as fluently as their beloved Goethe. Each page reveals their distinct penmanship: Clara’s slanting cursive and Robert’s loopy scrawl. At the end of their marriage book, he stops writing; she continues conversing with herself, writing unread letters of recrimination, pleas to see a doctor, and records of her daily frustrations. She turned the pages back to the front of the volume, moving backwards through the years of their marriage.

***

He watched her debut performance at Court; a young girl dwarfed by the Grand Piano in the reception rooms of the Belvedere.She did not notice him in the crowds; she avoided the gaze of the audience who had come to see her in their brocaded opera coats of gold lace that glinted in the candlelight.

In the audience,Robert patiently watched her and planned their life together.

Herfingerstravelledalongthekeyboardasiftheyweretracingalover’sspine.Beethoven’s

At the start, it had been easy to commit to him. In small acts, every day. After tending to the house, the children, and their bills, she could barely find a half hour to compose.

Appassionata — a progression of harmonies that made her feel as though the walls of the concert hall had opened to the frozen Vienna night outside.

As the years passed, her life as a composer, and as a concert pianist, was confined to memories in their marriage book. At first,she tried to conceal his condition,declining invitations to dine at the houses of his patrons and friends. But eventually, his music followed his mind: phrases flit helplessly together, recursive themes, baroque allusions. His late symphonies were praised by thousands,but she saw them for what they were: symptoms of a troubled mind.

Da Capo

The fireplace in the drawing room roars. Placing her hand in the centre of the journal she tears out the final pages,the ones that confess the weight of their marriage.A final gift; let history record a love story,one that will make sense of his music.One that lets people believe. As the paper curls in the hot coals, the labours of their marriage turn to ash. She sits at the piano and begins to play.

In the days following Robet’s death,Clara locked herself away indoors. Calling cards from friends were pushed through the door; long notes of condolences. She could not face them, yet. She sat in Robert’s upholstered chair looking out at the window that faced an open square before their house.The silver birch tree was starting to bud and bloom. She had cancelled her letters, let her clothes accumulate in the washing basket.She slept,she dreamt of music.

haikus

By Isha Singhal

Who’s really delirious?

Me, I am at Peace

The others are not, but yet I am the mad one

Is this delusion?

Dreams encouraged young are then branded delirium

As if age drives them

How much should I think?

If thoughts are calm they ring complacent; if chaotic, the Restless rivers rage

My phone needs me 24/7

A message, a response

Another one, no response

New message, new response

Push, pull & hold the system

Live while you’re young but Rules cage speech, spending and pleasure

What flame fears burning

Living in my phone

The phone goes ding

My mind goes ring, the fingers sing

A programmed repeat

bones

By Maya Weiss

I was eight years old when I managed to shatter the entirety of my left kneecap.

My recollection of this incident is limited. I remember some screeching — probably my grandmother, who I’m told is the one that found me, eyes wide open and tears streaming down my face as I lay sprawled in our backyard under the massive jacaranda tree. It would have been leafless; this all happened about three weeks before my ninth birthday in June. I can only imagine the image — my body splayed under a bony grey tree during the last gasp of autumn, a floppy leg folded grotesquely under a slowly-reddening rainbow skirt, eyes blotted pink and shell-shocked, decomposing leaves all through my habitually-terrible ponytail.

It’s hard to imagine a small child — even myself — involved in a horrific incident. It’s even harder to imagine what shattering your left kneecap is like until it happens to you. You’d think you’d sob uncontrollably. That wasn’t the case with me. Apparently, I was dead quiet the entire way to the hospital, adrenaline shooting through me like machine gun shells. I stared quietly at the side of the ambulance wall, left leg propped up with white fragments peeking through, tears streaming down my cheeks and staining the sterile sheet on the stretcher.

They put me in surgery, where they removed a lot of the bones from my kneecap and left me with plates and wires taking their place. They then told my mum and grandmother that although I was a child and my bones should be strong and healthy and heal well, I would still need to stay in the ward for at least a week. So began my medicated holiday, which smelled like plastic and the same disinfectant they used at after-school care.

Other than that, I remember only two things distinctly. The first: every meal I ate. I have no idea why. But the highlight was my penultimate day on Thursday; pancakes for breakfast, tomato soup for dinner, and panna cotta for dessert. I don’t know what they put into that soup, but it was better than the morphine.

The other thing I remember clearly was my two-minute-long conversation with Tony. Tony was a patient from the dementia ward who’d wandered into where I was staying. I was eating my lunch, an egg sandwich with lettuce and mayonnaise that was a bit soggy in the middle. I was on my third or fourth bite, watching Operation Ouch on my iPad. It was the end of that episode where they talk about using leeches to dissolve blood clots.

“While we only have one brain, a leech has thirty-two,” Dr. Chris explained from the shitty iPad speaker.

“While we only have one brain, a leech has thirty-two,” but this time the voice was coming from the edge of my bed. I looked up and saw Tony wearing a crumpled white shirt and a pair of blue hospital pants, which looked especially bright because his face was so red and his hair was so dull and flat. He was facing me, but his eyes were on the wall behind the bed.

“Yeah,” I blinked, “That’s what Dr. Chris just said.”

“Mm.” A pause. “I’d like to have thirty-two brains.”

“That sounds like too much thinking.”

Tony looked wistful, but in hindsight his eyes might have been rolling back.

“You can never do too much thinking.”

“I think you can,” I protested. I knew what it was like to get stuck on how to spell a word. You think about it really hard, and try to sound it out, but then you overthink it and you end up spelling ‘because’ like ‘bikoz’, and your teacher tells you that you’re stupid.

“You just said ‘think!’” Tony exclaimed. I supposed I had, and went a bit red because I hadn’t considered the possibility that you have to think to make the claim that you can think too much. There were a few seconds of silence whilst I stewed in my idiocy. Tony kept looking at the wall behind me, his hands rubbing against each other furiously yet mechanically. The situation was getting a bit awkward, and I really wanted to get back to my episode and see what happened to the kid who hit his head after Dr. Chris finished with the leeches, but I felt as though I needed to respond before Tony moved any closer.

“Well, what do you think about if you can never think too much?”

Tony smiled this time, although his eyes were still looking up and ahead.

“Yates.”

“What?”

“I love Yates.”

It was at that point that a fleet of three nurses sailed full speed into my room. Two of them rushed up to Tony and gently took him by the arms, while the other came right up next to me and said, while taking away the cling-wrap from my sandwich, that everyone was very sorry about Tony — he does this sometimes, he’s very poetic, romantic, you see, he likes his freedom, it’s on us — and that I’d get compensation, which turned out to be an extra cup of rice pudding.

I didn’t really think about Tony after that. That was, until one Friday afternoon in our Year Eleven English class, when we started our Yeats unit. I remember discussing his infatuation with Maud Gonne, a woman who by all accounts would rather have died before hooking up with him.

But this wouldn’t be for another decade, and so I carried out the rest of my hospital stay without ever considering the underlying meaning of Tony and his philosophies on thought and having thirty-two brains.

It was a while until I could walk properly again, and I was never able to climb the jacaranda in the backyard as high as before, which my grandmother called a blessing in disguise. I got crutches while I had my cast, which made me a minor celebrity in my classroom. I took half of year three bowling for my ninth birthday (a sport that I, lacking a leg, could still participate in), but eventually, the cast came off and the crutches were no longer necessary and I was left just as I was, albeit with a limp that never really went away. The shattered kneecap became a story for icebreaker games when I started high school, and I never missed out on more than a week of school at a time again.

I did, in fact, meet Tony again, at Acacia Gardens Retirement Village. In Year Twelve our school decided that for one period a week — Fridays after lunch — we were to engage in an enrichment activity, which ranged from Zumba to retirement home volunteering. Naturally, I chose the latter. So at the end of each school week our grade would bundle onto a couple of buses, and ten of us would get out at the local nursing home, ready to serve dry cake and bask in the aroma of shit.

I realise that might be a bit dramatic. It didn’t actually smell that bad, and the cake actually tasted alright. Sometimes it was orange and poppyseed and rather moist, and other times it was vanilla with a gel-like icing and crumbly sponge. Tony’s favourite was the chocolate, though, which I knew because he told me it was the one they served on birthdays. Every Friday he would ask me, or my friend Freya, or Olivia the nurse, if they were serving the chocolate cake for afternoon tea today.

“No? Well they should, because it’s my birthday, and I’m turning fifty-one.” He would say that each time, with a chuckle for emphasis.

The four times they did serve chocolate cake while we were there were the happiest I’d seen Tony. He’d munch on the thick slice with its buttery icing, forgoing the provided plastic spork and allowing crumbs to land everywhere but his paper plate, mumbling as he chewed: “Happy bloody birthday to me!”

I wasn’t surprised when I first saw Tony at the nursing home. He didn’t recognise me. I recognised him, but there was no element of shock or even coincidence. Tony was simply there, and he was one of the patients we would serve cake to and play cards with. Tony was good at cards, he just had to be playing Go Fish. Freya and I tried to teach him Bullshit, which he had a good laugh at and seemed quite enthused about, but he never lied. It got boring, because every time we would call bullshit on three sevens or two kings or four queens we were always the ones picking up cards. Tony always, always told the truth. And we would lose. So we retreated to Go Fish, where he lied on every hand. The sneaky bastard.

Tony died soon after we started our T.S. Eliot unit. I know because my grandmother happened to move into Acacia Gardens last year, and I asked one of the staff out of interest. I imagine he would have read T.S. Eliot. He’s the kind of person who appreciated that sort of poetry. Maybe not The Hollow Men, though. It’s too pessimistic, and the idea of a straw-filled man drifting through a barren landscape filled with nothing feels like it wouldn’t be right. It wouldn’t fit Tony.

I broke my hand in my first year of uni. I was blackout drunk and walking back to accom with a group of mates I’d met that night, and there were massive billboards and banners along the avenue all ready for Open Day. One guy decided to climb all the way up one of the banners, and I did too, and we hung off the top, three metres in the air, and of course after barely thirty seconds hanging loose I fell straight back down. I stuck the landing — with two feet and my left hand on the ground. I didn’t notice it was broken until the next morning when I woke up and the entire circumference of my wrist was blue, at which point I shuffled myself off to the emergency room because it was the same shade of blue as my knee had been when I was eight. I didn’t need surgery, and I went home that afternoon with my hand in a plaster cast. No hospital dinner for me.

I would’ve been the least dramatic part of an Operation Ouch episode.

Loveday

By Aala Cheema

Content Warning: Racism

The glow of the early morning sun slipped through the branches of the acacia trees. Crimson rosellas swept over the Murray River, outstretching their blue wings to graze the still water lightly. The birds whistled their bell-like calls as they erupted higher and higher into the expansive sky, rising like the orange sun. Pee-ping. Pee-ping. Pee-ping. The cry of freedom.

The birds settled on the branches of the overhanging trees, shrilling towards the rows of timber huts. Hundreds of men emerged from within, meeting the waiting soldiers on the rocky path. Like a stream of gushing blood, they hurried through the camp in their red uniforms. Silver buttons lined up against breastbones glinted in the sun.

Haruto crossed his arms and tucked his stiff, cold hands within his armpits. He shivered. As he exhaled, his breath appeared in wisps before him, dancing like tendrils of fire in the frosty air. Haruto glimpsed the barbed wire that enclosed the dodecagon-like perimeter of the camp. He imagined walking up to the fence and closing his hands tightly around the helical wire, feeling the sharp edges piercing his palms until blood slicked the silver and trickled onto the dirt. He wondered how close he could get before the soldiers posted high upon their guard towers perforated his weary body with bullets.

As the men trudged through the camp, groups dispersed. Some headed towards the kilns to burn wood until black smoke engulfed the fresh country air. Others walked to the piggery or the mill to quarry stones. Half a dozen men veered towards the garden, where silver beets, rhubarb, French beans, beetroots, and turnips sprouted from the musky dirt. The remaining walked through the mess hall, edging past lines of tables and benches and towards the kitchen.

“Have a lovely day,” said the guard as Haruto passed by him and stepped into the kitchen. Haruto stilled. His head pounded, the words resounding like a chant. Have a lovely day. A lovely day. Lovely day. Loveday.

Haruto grimaced. When he had arrived at the camp a year ago, the name had seemed so incongruous with the soldiers and their machine guns and the coiling wire that seemed like a tightening noose around his neck. He listened as the head chef read out the day’s menu. Oats for breakfast, again. Stew and rice for lunch. Mutton for dinner. Haruto stood beside the other men before the countertop and passed along the bucket of vegetables to prep for the stew.

“How was your hearing?” Haruto asked the young man beside him as he scraped the purple peel of an onion with the blade of his knife.

George shook his head solemnly, staring intently at the potatoes before him.

“I am sorry,” said Haruto, averting his gaze as tears formed in George’s eyes.

“The man said to me that a Jap was a Jap when I tried explaining that I was born in Darwin, that I had never been elsewhere,” George said quietly.

“I am sorry,” Haruto said again. There was nothing else to say.

“I heard,” someone along the line said, “When the war ends, we will be sent to Japan.”

“By the Allies or the Axis?” asked George, slicing a potato into large chunks.

“Does it matter?” said Haruto, cutting off the root and stem of the peeled onion.

“What will I do?” said George, “I cannot speak Japanese. My mother returned after my father died, but I have never been.”

Haruto silently agreed. The country felt like a distant land that was as foreign to him as it was to these Australians. But there was also nothing here for him to return to. He had no wife who relied on him and no child he loved. All the men here were like him, crushed by the weight of their misery. He remembered the police arriving at his house soon after Pearl Harbor. They rushed him into the back of the police car, ignoring his protests as he explained that he had lived in Australia for four decades, ever since he was a teenager.

“Even so, mate,” the policeman had said, “The Japs have attacked us. Someone might decide to take it out on you.”

Strange that this imprisonment was for his own protection. Strange that he still cared about the reason.

When he had arrived at the camp hours later, he had stared at the registration form. The thick black words of the typewriter had stared back at him. He could still picture it now; the words crawling across the paper like ants until they suddenly became intelligible once more. FOR ALIEN RESIDENTS IN AUSTRALIA. Is that what he was? It seemed so impossible. He had attended the local public school, waltzed with a pretty girl at the monthly dances at the town hall, opened his laundromat and spent each day walking upon the same red earth as the rest of them.

The men bustled around Haruto, talking. Their knives thwacked against the cutting boards. Tears silently rolled down Haruto’s wrinkled skin and dropped onto his uniform, blotting the smooth burgundy with dark smudges. He clutched the knife’s hilt tightly, the side of the blade grazing his knuckles softly as he sliced the onions. More tears swelled in his eyes as he glimpsed the tag that hung over his neck. It dangled over the cutting board, the thick black numbers peering up at him. The knife slammed against the cutting board, moving faster and faster. Pieces of onion flew into the air as Haruto’s movements intensified. The knife glinted. His vision blurred. From beside him, George gasped. And then, through the tears, he saw the blood.

Haruto stopped cutting. He looked curiously at his hand. It still gripped the onion. His hands were always so cold. They had shrivelled after years at the laundromat and handling the grainy washing powder. The middle three fingers had been cleanly sliced off at the knuckles. They had rolled off the cutting board and settled beside the onion peels on the countertop. The blood from the wounds gushed over the silver knife. From behind him, Haruto heard someone call for a nurse.

No, he wanted to say. It does not hurt. How could it hurt? How could anything hurt anymore? Haruto stared once more at the knife and the blood that coated it. Silver and red. Like the fence, like the uniform, like so much else. What a lovely day, he thought. What a lovely day.

happy holidays

By Sai Woebking

Breathe. You’re fine. In and out. Feel your lungs fill with air, expanding with every breath. It feels good right? Smell the permeating freshness, the slight smell of spice that lingers….

It’s a time of celebration, of joy, of love, of good food, and of brilliant lights, glistening all around you. The way they shine through the fog and reflect on the wet roads truly is a beautiful sight to behold.

Huddle close to a fire, or a hot cup of tea, or coffee, or hot chocolate, whatever suits your taste. Relax. Unclench your jaw, drop your shoulders, feel the warmth, let it in. Listen to the rain tap against the windows, pitter patter pitter patter, drip drip drip.

Isn’t it calming, the way all other sounds are muted, distant, echoing like a memory?

Does it sound like music? A perpetual beat? What song does the rain sing in the morning? What song does the rain sing at noon? What song does the rain sing at night?

It’s not like the fog bites the way wind would — it doesn’t howl in pain, nor does it try to carry you away, quite the opposite actually. The fog embraces you, surrounds you, and grounds you. It waits, holding on to you, not wanting to let you go, like an overly attached lover or child. Close the curtains.

Yes, much better. Don’t let your drink grow cold, that would be no good now. Not with it being so cold outside already. Maybe grab a blanket? And breathe….

Don’t forget to breathe. Sure it stings, but isn’t it fun to see little clouds form whenever you breathe out? Didn’t you use to pretend that the heat leaving your body was smoke, that you were just holding back your power, that you could unleash fire upon the world, warm it, dry it, surround yourself with comfort so that the water could never reach you, so that you’d be fine, you’d be safe, you’d be warm and dry and comfortable and —

Anyway. You’ve got your lukewarm drink. You’ve covered the windows. Remember the beautiful lights, and the joy, the laughter, the good food? Besides, you’re not on the ground floor. Be happy! You’re fine! You’re not on the ground floor!

Sure the puddles keep getting deeper and deeper and deeper. And yes, you’re right, where should the water go — after all, the ground has long reached its saturation point. But you’re safe inside, covered in blankets, and the curtains are only slightly soaked!

But the fog keeps getting thicker, heavier, hanging in the air. Is it smothering you a bit? Do you feel it closing in? Don’t think about that too much…

Breathe.

Fine, breathing hurts, and you’re not getting enough air anyway. Maybe your lungs should be used to the perpetual sogginess by now. It’s not like it’s never rained before, or turned fields into lakes, or made you long for spring when winter kept dragging on and on and on….

But the wet has never washed away the ground from under your feet in quite such a persistent manner. It’s never made trees rot and crops shrivel away just before it’s time to harvest them, and it’s never your skin imitating the ripples of the no-longer-distant sea. The rain has never come from below.

Hmm…there’s fog coming in through the cracked window frames. I knew we should have replaced those. But it’s too late for that now, I guess.

Drip, drip, drip.

Breathe in. At least try. You need to calm down a bit. And out. That’s it. Put down your mug whilst you can still see the table.

Crying isn’t going to help.

I know your lungs are filling with water.

I know you can’t breathe.

It’s ok.

It’s a time of celebration, of joy, of love, of good food, and of brilliant lights.

The tide beckons, my ankles, my wrists, my hair, suspending and resisting. Salt-wet ribbons slow in the light.

Water slips through my fingers, silver and sighing.

For a moment, I am weightless.

Instructions for Returning By Lauren Welch

My skin, so soft and unresisting, a threshold unspoken, where body and earth unravel their seam in silence.

Sunlight threads itself gently through the fabric of my skin, each pore opening, quiet, golden, like a prayer through the eye of a needle.

A wind rushes through me, though I am certain I am whole. A silent tug through my bones, a reminder of our dance. It echoes a name I don’t remember giving, singing in quiet communion.

A hand pressed onto bark imprints itself upon me, lingering long after we’ve departed. It is not known where I begin and end.

Perhaps the tree and I are one. For a breath, a heartbeat, a season.

Somewhere deep, something inhales me, stitching me into its slow and endless rhythm.

The world is porous, and so am I, a thread in its tapestry, weaving, becoming.

There is no boundary, no separate self, only the quiet pulse of the earth calling you home.

By Victoria Kao

I have left for somewhere warm, I have landed under dashes of waving greens, I am in someplace good.

But as I take my steps here, beneath this sun, where nothing is shadowed, and all is bright

— everything beneath the light is swirling.

My eyes are clouded, my footing loose.

I’m faltering with every grazing voice, my hands are quivering before every wave.

And so I look down, to find my feet have bent themselves to a curve, to seek the swaying of my father’s cradle, to find the pulse that once carried sleep, to a time when the world was bordered by his arms.

I am walking on a rhythm you built.

So while I am here now, in a place I thought good, in a place I hoped good, and your arms have long been pulled away by the reaching hands of time,

my mind is warped to the trembling pendulum of youth.

On paths you have never touched, with voices you can’t shield. This diasporic body that my heart refuses to hold, is a prison of my memories, surviving in a mother tongue, that though connects me to home, is what I wish to smother.

And so I rub salt into every crevice of my skin, my tongue, my eyes, with the crystals reflecting the streaming sunlight, trying, to see white.

Trying, to preserve this body. Sterilising it. Embalming it.

I’m trying to walk, in front of all you hoped for me to see, in front of all you worked for me to see, but I can’t move.

I’m kneeling,

I’m kneeling,

letting the coarseness of the salt sink in, hoping it will clean the memories, and free me from your swaying.

Between Beauty and Oblivion

By Sacha Von Thomann

Alone, they stood in a dimly lit hallway.

The dust could not be forgotten. They remained in abundance — felt only in the lungs, a smell too familiar.

Rays of sun kindly greeted the glass window, only to then steal its colours with their deceptive glow. A quiet deterioration of the paintings. An unbearable heat in the cold room. What once was held together now formed irreparable cracks.

Their stories were beautifully told — tales of betrayal as friends became foes. Tales of ships battling stormy waters; of music and silence; of dancers spinning in decadent masks, twirling. Tales of pain, radiating an eternal ache. And yet, their allure remained.

The fire of their souls once burned like a thousand suns, now quelled by history’s cruel waves. Rejection’s knife plunged too deep; as they bled out, only resentment lingered.

She floated down the hall in her burgundy lace dress. The oak beneath her creaked its first song in years. Wearing her golden halo, she felt she was beyond temptation. Fear itself would have hesitated; promptly she began her search. A search for what was hidden, beneath the stained burlap.

Like a predator catching its prey, it drew her in.

Their eyes were a blinding darkness; shadows stretched the length of each canvas. She was pivoted forward as if they were in collusion with the air.

As in those ensnared before her, the false sense of security faded. Its delicate hands clawed at her throat, wanting her last breath, wrapping its hands around her.

Slowly, her young soul became unrecognisable. It now told stories of age and ache, withering against the experienced force.

Its ivy continued to grow. At first, it was a novel growth, intertwining its delicate vines around her delicate heart and delicate mind. Their pace increased with every squeeze, ligature marks promptly forming without regret.

Soon, the blades were piercing her heart. Their war was swift and relentless; their victory was inevitable. Decay set in, the odour so foul it could conjure tears.

Then a renewal process was underway; the beats of her heart were no longer her own. Her thoughts now knew not of her history, only theirs.

A war of attrition began against her body; her halo could not save her now. The deadly infection filled her veins and invaded her marrow. Her cells lived no more as she took her final, laboured breaths — each one farther away from her reality. Her hands tightly wrapped around her body. Then, they were one.

The world around her kept spinning, its axis unchanged. In her mind, she was the only person in the world. The outside didn’t exist; she was in another reality, under a spell that held her there. They were holding her back with every strand of their fabric.

Pleas turned to screams until their voices went hoarse. Pleas couldn’t help her now, she was lost in the tide.

Her blood-curdling screams shattered the glass. Each window caved in succession. She felt no pain as she walked in circles on the glass, around and around in a never-ending cycle. If they cut her foot, if she bled, it was okay — the blood was no longer hers.

Again and again, she screamed. Like a banshee retreating into the night, her screams haunted the hallway, her howls only echoes of the past. The once sturdy walls were no match for her wails. They could not bear it anymore, unable to contain her — and neither could she.

She could no longer stand the sight of the paintings; they were only a broken mirror of what she had become. Their features were indistinguishable, each crack identical.

Thoughts had already been forcibly dragged, bleeding, across the wooden floor, leaving guided by instinct alone. It was too late. Her bloodshot eyes quickly scanned the room, for she needed to understand her prey. With her claws, she leapt at the painting, scratching across the canvas, further tearing its cracks. An act of pure savagery.

A figure appeared from the darkness, wearing crimson robes — a mark earned by its past. His eyes held the history of the world, glazed over with terror. Their dark shadows met each other with a sort of familiarity, as if old friends — or foes.

Its vocation lent itself to fear. Humans often sought to outrun it, willing to do anything to evade its clutch. The facade always faded, the mask was always ripped off, for it could not be cheated. When that time came, its services were sometimes met with resistance; others simply resigned to them, for the inevitable was always waiting behind the creakiest door.

A single tear, her only resistance, cascaded beautifully down her face. Silently, it reached its hand out — a warm and inviting presence. It felt safe. Together they went, capturing her into its cold embrace.

Its hidden daggers pierced her. Blood stained the walls and the paintings — It was what they wanted. It drank her wine until she collapsed in its arms. Her skin began to pale, and her warmth faded. Her lifeless body was gently laid on the floor, a single sheet to cover it.

Delirium in Dupattas: The Strange Rebranding of South Asian Culture

By Atputha Rahavan

“The commodification of Otherness has been so successful because it is offered as a new delight, more intense, more satisfying than normal ways of doing and feeling.” — (bell hooks, 1992).

Sometimes I scroll through social media and feel like I have entered a parallel universe — one where a lehenga paired with a dupatta is being sold as “Scandi-chic,” and hair oiling is the latest self-care trend, rebranded as something sleek and minimalist. And I can’t lie, it’s dizzying. There’s a kind of cultural delirium in watching things that once made me feel embarrassed become aspirational…as long as they’re removed from people who look like me.

Growing up in Australia as a Tamil Sri Lankan girl, I was very aware of my differences — or perhaps, made aware of my differences. In primary school, my hair, sometimes slick with coconut oil at the behest of my mum, was something to be ridiculed, not replicated. My school lunches, lovingly packed rice, Puttu or Stringhoppers with various intricate and aromatic curries didn’t exactly receive the best of reactions. And, annual multicultural days where you had to wear traditional attire didn’t really have me brimming with excitement. I spent so much of my childhood trying to dilute my heritage, tucking in the parts of myself that felt “too much” in a sea of blonde ponytails and ham sandwiches. And now? The very things that marked me as different are trending.

Hair oiling, for example, has been lifted from its cultural context and dropped into whitewashed influencer routines. What once got young South Asian girls teased is now an aspirational beauty standard, shared on social media with branded products and carefully curated lighting but not a single mention of the millions of brown women who have been oiling their hair for generations.

This feeling of cultural delirium is also present when I look at current trends when it comes to fashion. Over the weekend, I found myself scrolling through Instagram in Chifley basement instead of writing my philosophy essay (as one does), when an ad from Oh Polly stopped me mid-scroll. It featured a caucasian model in a flowing twopiece set — draped chiffon, delicate embroidery and glimmering details with a new “Scandinavian summer scarf” around her neck. After a bit of digging, I came across a wave of brands — Oh Polly, House of CB, PepperMayo, PrettyLittleThing, and others — releasing these flowing two-piece sets with draped fabric and sparkly embroidery. And all I could think was: that’s a lehenga and a dupatta. But instead of calling it what it is, they name it something abstract or European-sounding; apparently these outfits evoke “Mediterranean goddess” or “Scandi elegance”. Listen, I did a bit of research on Scandinavian clothing for this article, but I genuinely cannot fathom the apparent aesthetic connection between Oh Polly’s ripped off lehenga equivalent and a Bunad. Nonetheless, there is no mention by these brands or the influencers promoting them about the obvious South Asian influence.

Now, South Asian cultures boast an impressive array of traditional wear, but the dupatta is a pretty universally recognised piece among South Asian women. To many of us, what’s now been rebranded the “Scandinavian summer scarf”, has always been a dupatta or a chinni or a Sudithar shawl. The outfits advertised by these brands shimmer just like the ones I’ve seen at Tamil weddings, the silhouettes mirror our cultural wear. And yet, somehow, the cultural source is completely erased. Brown South Asian roots pulled out, bleached to a level of tolerable whiteness and “offered as a new delight” to an eager Western audience.

But here’s what gets me: when Western influencers adopt trends from East Asia, like Korean skincare or Japanese matcha for instance, they’re usually quick to cite the origin. I find the same cannot be said for the adoption of South Asian culture. Why is Korean skincare proudly labelled as Korean, and Japanese matcha celebrated with origin stories and tea rituals, but South Asian traditions get washed down until they’re unrecognisable, or worse, claimed as Western creativity? That difference I think, as alluded to above, is about proximity to whiteness. The lighter the skin, the more palatable the culture. It seems that the further you are from whiteness, be it Black, Indigenous or South Asian, the more your culture gets rebranded before it’s allowed to exist in the mainstream.

Despite being dizzying, this strange rebranding is nothing new. Writers like Nisha Ramayya and bell hooks, amongst others, have talked about this before, the way mainstream culture devours what’s “other” without credit and turns it into something fashionable only when whiteness is attached to it. Ramayya in particular reiterates in her poetry how brownness is often aestheticised but not humanised (I would recommend her poem “Secretions or Obstructions”).

To be clear, I’m not demanding that culture be gatekept. Culture, of course, is something that evolves. It travels and transforms. But transformation without recognition is theft, not appreciation. The word “delirium” comes back to me here because it feels like we are living in a time where reality is fractured. Where centuriesold traditions are being ‘rediscovered’ by the same systems and people that once openly dismissed them. I suppose that because these trends weren’t present when I was younger, I can’t help but feel slightly offended. Still, I won’t deny that a part of me is glad to see these elements of South Asian culture becoming more visible. There is a quiet hope in knowing that maybe, the next generation of brown girls won’t feel like they have to shrink themselves to be accepted. But that hope is complicated by the knowledge that visibility doesn’t always equal justice, and trends don’t always come with credit.

They say, “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery”, but that phrase has always rubbed me the wrong way. So let this be a reminder that appreciation should always start with acknowledgment. And that culture isn’t something you can just slip on like a “Scandichic” dress, especially if you’ve never had to carry the weight of it.

How To Avoid Delirium While Using MyWay+?

By A.V(ery regular rider)

The new MyWay+ system for Canberra’s public transport system went live in November last year, but it wasn’t without its teething issues. If the changes scared you off or if you are new to Canberra, here are seven tips to make your experience a smooth one!

Pick Your Payment

The new MyWay+ system has a lot of options to pick from for payment. Some are better than others. I would recommend going for a physical MyWay+ card, using your credit / debit card (not American Express!), or using a digital wallet card if you don’t use Apple. While using your debit or digital card is more convenient, a physical MyWay+ card allows you the option of anonymity at purchase so that the system doesn’t have to handle your bank details. As a tertiary student, you can get a discount on bus fares by showing proof of concession when purchasing a physical card, or by registering your (physical, debit, or digital) card with the MyWay+ web portal and selecting the option through there (no proof required).

MyWay+ will tell you that you can pay with a QR code. Do Not Listen To Them! The QR code struggles to scan at the back entrance of the bus, and it rarely scans easily at the front of the bus as well. If you are on a longer trip, it may time out and leave you unable to tap off. Additionally, if your phone has a digital wallet, it might be activated while you are trying to scan the QR code due to the sensor proximity. People might give you bad looks if you try to use this method without practice.

Don’t try to use your old MyWay card. The names and colour schemes are very similar, and it sounds like MyWay+ should just be adding features to a preexisting MyWay system, but this is not the case. It will not work. You can buy a new MyWay+ card from the register at the Daily Mart on campus.

Install the MyWay+ app or bookmark the web portal page

If you don’t care about real-time bus location updates and are using your debit card, you can skip this step. Otherwise, as no third-party apps have been given real-time information yet, the MyWay+ app is required to check if your bus is running early / late. You need the web portal link ( the app can open the browser for you if you click on settings in the top-right corner) to top up a physical MyWay+ card, including anonymously, as top-up machines have not been activated around the city yet.

Plan your route using a third-party app

The MyWay+ app alleges to have a route-planning feature. It will often tell you to walk for several hours or catch a motorcycle or taxi before it tells you to catch a bus, if you aren’t careful with its bizarre settings. Just use Google Maps or some equivalent to pick your routes, even though they can’t access real-time information.

Wait at a transit stop for your vehicle, then tap on (and tap off) as you would on any other transit system — even on Fare Free Fridays!

If you are using a MyWay+ card: Check your balance regularly!

You can do this through the MyWay+ web portal. I would recommend checking weekly, at least. They will not alert you when you go into negative balance (despite what the official website might tell you), nor can you check your balance when entering the vehicle. The card will eventually just stop letting you tap on. You can set up auto top-ups through the web portal, but set aside a bit of time for this as the process is sometimes a bit fiddly — you will require an ACT digital account for this feature, which the web portal will link you to creating.

Note that MyWay+ is inaccessible for blind and/or low vision people

As it stands, the MyWay+ system does not meet accessibility guidelines, with no clear timeline as to when this will be rectified! You will be unable to use a screen reader to access the features through the web portal (including applying for concession prices, setting up auto top-ups, transferring card balances, and more) as the hamburger button for selecting these options does not register for the screen readers, making the process of using MyWay+ just that bit extra practical. Additionally, most buses will not announce the stops they are arriving at – and in those that do, the voice has high levels of static, and only announces a select few of the stops being reached. To complain (or seek guidance) you can call 13 17 10.

Don’t be afraid to catch the bus at later hours!

The Canberra bus network is generally very safe — I’ve caught many post11pm bus rides for years and never had a significant issue (even as a young woman). While experiences do vary, and you should take into account your own circumstances, I wouldn’t rule out public transport without cause.

I would maybe try to avoid catching the buses around 4pm, however, as that is when high school students tend to be on them, and they can cause issues. I would also avoid catching the bus on Sundays, if possible, as you could be waiting more than an hour for a bus to arrive.

Good luck navigating the grounded and rational world of MyWay+.

Conflict in the Congo, South Sudan, Haiti, and the Central African Republic Escalates Amid Global Silence

By Akshit Tyagi

While the world watches Gaza and Ukraine, other wars rage on. Wars that kill just as many, displace just as widely and starve just as deeply. Yet, these events go largely unnoticed. The Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan, Haiti, and the Central African Republic are facing humanitarian catastrophes that match or surpass more typically “visible” conflicts in scale. But they are barely in the news.

Is Congo bleeding whilst the world turns a blind eye?

Since the start of 2025, nearly 7,000 people have died in eastern Congo as the M23 rebel group, reportedly backed by Rwanda, pushed further into government territory. Cities like Goma and Bukavu have fallen or come under threat, displacing more than 1.2 million people. Camps are overflowing. Food is scarce. And still, the world barely reacts.

Recently, a glimmer of hope emerged. The Congolese government and M23 leaders sat down for the first round of peace talks in Doha, with further negotiations scheduled. The rebels withdrew from a strategic mineral-rich town as a gesture of goodwill. But tensions remain high, and international pressure on Rwanda has been tentative at best. In the shadow of other wars, Congo’s collapse continues.

Is South Sudan heading into another disaster?

South Sudan is again on the edge. The house arrest of First Vice President Riek Machar by government forces in March effectively tore up the fragile peace agreement signed in 2018. Clashes have broken out across the country, and ethnic militias are mobilising. The violence feels eerily familiar, as if the horrors of the 2013–2015 civil war, which killed an estimated 400,000 people, are returning.

Meanwhile, the country is facing its worst hunger crisis ever recorded. Over 7.7 million people — more than half the population — live on the brink of starvation. Refugees fleeing the conflict in Sudan are spilling across the border, adding pressure to already strained food systems and healthcare.

What’s happening in Haiti while the world looks away?

Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital, has all but collapsed. Armed gangs now control nearly 85 percent of the city. Violence has surged, and so has the number of people fleeing it. In just the first three months of 2025, over 78,000 Haitians were displaced by violence, with many left without food, shelter, or state protection.

More than a million people across Haiti are in desperate need of humanitarian aid. The country’s transitional government has turned to outside help, including a controversial Kenyan-led security force. But gunfire continues to echo through the streets. Looting, kidnappings, and killings remain routine. Yet coverage of this crisis is a trickle, not a flood.

Why does the Central African Republic remain forgotten?

In the Central African Republic, violence never really stopped — it just stopped making news. In 2025 alone, entire villages in regions like Kouki and Nzoroh have been attacked and burned by armed groups. Civilians are being caught between militias and government troops, and the death toll continues to climb. A third of the population is going hungry. Over 2.8 million people need humanitarian aid. But the world’s aid efforts are dwindling, and funding is drying up. Even the flooding disasters that hit the country last year — affecting over 100,000 people — barely registered internationally. In silence, suffering deepens.

How do these conflicts compare to Gaza and Ukraine?

In Gaza, over 50,000 Palestinians have died since October 2023. In Ukraine, around 427,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded, with Ukrainian losses also immense. These are not small numbers — but they exist alongside death tolls of 400,000 in South Sudan’s past war, thousands in Congo this year alone, and thousands more in Haiti’s gang violence and CAR’s ongoing battles. The difference isn’t in the scale. It’s in the spotlight.

Why are these wars ignored?

These crises don’t come with political convenience. They aren’t fought in areas of strategic interest to the West. There are no grand narratives of democracy versus authoritarianism, and no major global powers backing one side or the other. These are slow, grinding tragedies — complex and seemingly endless. But they matter. They matter because real people are suffering in ways that are no less horrific than the conflicts that dominate headlines. They matter because ignoring them sends a message: that some lives are worth more attention, more outrage, and more help than others.

If the international community continues to look away, these so-called ‘forgotten wars’ will continue to bleed quietly, leaving behind generations scarred by violence, hunger, and abandonment. It’s time to shine a light on all the wars — not just the ones trending in the news cycle.

soulsoul soul

By

Evelyn is startled to discover that she is independent of her body—has been for a long time, possibly forever—and all this time she has been learning to keep up with it so as not to expose herself. Committing to memory the way her arms move when she walks, the rhythm of her breaths, the precise length of a blink. She has been diligently ensuring that she is not caught out in a moment of complaisance in which she perhaps turns her head a fraction too slowly so that she and her body blur in the artificial style of a poor-quality audio with a tinny echo. To expose herself, she understands, would be to reveal the conscious practice of her movements, and the pains she is at to pretend otherwise, and the way that she is barely keeping up with her self while everyone around her is concerned with the real world because they are all connective tissue and habitable flesh, easy in the motion of their bodies.

But she is good at this, and performs convincingly. And yet occasionally her body takes her by surprise, seizes her in a fit of momentary rebellion. Exhibit A: The words are on her tongue before she has thought to say them, and she must scramble to fit her mouth around them before she has approved them.

“You’re a purebred asshole, then?”

This is an extract from Part II of “Nothing Major,” which you can read in full on the Woroni website or listen to as a podcast on Spotify through the QR code.

Evelyn Ryde, lately titled nothing-major and serial ditherer, is suspended in the ever-moving world of her early twenties. When she receives an unexpected wedding invite, Evelyn must face a triad of horrors: the young and precocious, her own comparative uncertainty, and small talk with acquaintances from home. Written by Caelan Doel, read by Amy Gottschalk, and produced by Alexander An for Woroni.

graphic by jasmin small

Caelan Doel

Sonnet for the Tides

By Jaden Ogwayo

Your torso flares and falls like crashing tides. A tempest or typhoon purports to break

Your gentle mind: a seashore that derides The storms that keep both of us awake.

I envy how you thrive despite the weather, Persisting in a torrent or great flood. Your durable complexion, tough as leather, Maintains its shape in swamps and dirt and mud.

That said, I often fret about your leisure: A faculty you rarely tend to keep.

A constant storm deprives the soul of pleasure! A never-ending day precludes your sleep!

Determined as you are to face life’s tests, Forget not, too, to take the time for rests.

Art by mir

The Praxis of Falling (fractured)

By Caelan Doel

“Come build a tower with me,”says he, in choked candlelight and wilful unknowing. He sits at the far end of a table for two, all space and rocks and hard things.

She steps toward that gasping flame, and on the table is a deck of glass cards. In taking her seat, she seals her fate, and draws a jack of hearts.

In the beginning, they planned to be kings — and in failing, determined on gods.

She met him late one night, barefoot on the beach, when the stars had begun their downward pilgrimage. He stood in the lazy tide, gazing unseeingly out at the ocean. The air was still, and the waves seemed so far off as to have no business with either of them.

She went to be beside him. He was spectacularly drunk, and if he noticed her at once he didn’t say anything.

After some time, he said serenely, “I think I’m going to be sick.”

She helped him home and the ocean washed away his insides.

She places her card against his, and they hold in equilibrium. A little glass house.

“They’ll never believe it,” he said once, before the sun had struck the sky and turned it into fire. He was sitting ahead of her, legs swinging over the edge of the roof of an apartment building without discomfort. (There was a frail railing for him to rest his elbows on.) The city sprawled before them, and it was the boy and the girl and the empty world.

“I’ll be the most admired person on earth. The man who built a stairway to Heaven. And you’ll help me,” he said to her over his shoulder.

“Together we’ll do what nobody else has done. Together we’ll take on all worlds.”

And it was good, togetherness.

He wanted to build his magnum opus, a monument to the gods of wealth and youth and passion. With a great burst of divine energy they breathed his work into being. His glory lit the far ends of the earth, his story was told and retold, and she sat in the dark patch behind him — a little cold.

“Look,” he would say, “Look at what we’re building. It is vaster than all the seas and all the desert sands. It is greater than the rising sun.”

And she would smile, and be grateful for her own participation.

The pile of cards is smaller now, and their tower is climbing, gasping, reaching. She winces at the sight of it, but her finger has slipped on a sharp edge. Her blood comes red as the mouth of the queen of hearts.

The world was falling, falling, his masterpiece. They saw how pale and sickly it was, had been all along. He screamed, and she screamed with him, and they were bloody screams, and all of it had been for nothing, and how she had suffered, and how he had been blinded by his own light, and now it was all debris on the ground.

Their tower of glass cards, their glistening Babel, stands gloriously for one beat. Two.

His face is triumphant. He has bent his head towards the candlelight; his eyes gleam ravenous; his teeth are suddenly knives.

And then it all comes tumbling down, as it was destined to from the start.

She is breathing glass, she is breathing glass, glittering whisper shards dancing like fairies in the light of the candle, slipping as dust down her windpipe and rejoicing in the softness of her lungs.

He sits back, avoids the fallout, and looks angry, reminded of his failure. He stands, grinds his teeth, and departs; leaves her alone to be suffocated by the remains of his yearning.

For Fear of Running Out of Time

By Remi Lynch

A piece heavily inspired by Lucy Dacus’ new album, Forever is a Feeling — lyrics from “Forever is a Feeling”, “Lost Time”, “For Keeps” and “The Most Wanted Man” by Lucy Dacus are quoted throughout.

My love for my partner makes it so that sometimes I think it couldn’t possibly last forever — us, this version of us. I never want this particular love to end, so I get caught up in figuring out, How can I make this last forever?

But that’s not really the point... is it? Forever is a Feeling has helped me reflect on the temporality of relationships, and my fear of mortality and of running out of time. My love for my partner is inexplicable. I have never felt this way about someone. And I want to properly experience that. To attempt to make it last forever would be to exist in fear. I want to feel this forever as though it were an emotion — a state of being with someone rather than something to strive for, something to achieve.

You knew the scenic route

I knew the shortcut and shut my mouth

Isn’t that what love’s about?

Doing whatever to draw it out?

My partner and I have known each other for two years, but we only told each other we wanted to deepen our relationship a few months ago. So, in some ways, I think we’re existing on lost time.

I often find myself architecting little ways to spend more time together. I’ll ask if he wants to walk me to my tutorial across campus. If he wants to have lunch with me instead of going home, wants to walk with me over to Daily Market and cross his fingers while I cross mine that there are still some veggie buns left. If he wants to stay up late and watch Succession with me. If he wants to meet me after my work shift and walk home together so we can talk, instead of just meeting at mine.

I’m clawing back those ounces of lost time, bit by bit — soaking up every moment I can with him while our forever hangs around. Where everything feels to be in sync, where his laugh echoes mine, and both of us cut in with the same phrase and grin as we exclaim jinx! A forever that feels like a state of being that may stretch on endlessly.

But I love you, and every day

That I knew and didn’t say Is lost time

Sometimes, I feel we’ve known each other since we were children. We might’ve played imagination games in long grass, the sun beating down on the backs of our necks. I would’ve pretended to be a time-travelling storyteller, my denim jeans tinged with muddy browns and greens from the grass. He would’ve been a wandering swordsman with a cheeky smile, offering protection in exchange for my rambling tales.

But in reality, we never played these games. If we had known each other as children, it wouldn’t have felt like forever — it would have felt... temporary. Who I am today is different from the person I was two, five and ten years ago. So why chase forever when in five years, our forever feeling could be over? I should revel in the feeling of this particular forever, this infinite now, instead.

So I miss you when I’m with you because I know we’re not playing for keeps. Our love feels like forever for so many reasons. It feels like forever when I get lost in his sparkling blue eyes and can’t look away. It feels like forever when I listen to his laugh. And it feels like forever because I am unable to stop myself from finishing our dates by running my words together about how he doesn’t give himself enough credit because, in my eyes, he deserves all of the credit.

Open the heart and take a look

I promise anything you give me

Is something I will keep

Sure, I could hope that this love will never peter out — and it may not. But I don’t want that hope (and its accompanying fears) to stop me from truly experiencing this feeling of forever with him. And so, I won’t.

Nothing lasts forever but let’s see how far we get

So when it comes my time to lose you

I’ll have made the most of it

By Char Symington

Dream I

In sleep, behold a memory I can smell the rain in the distance The earth around me is awakening to the water. I am tired. What will come, has passed before.

In sleep, my memory leaks In the distance, I can see myself Younger, and chasing cars I think my family are inside. The colour of everything slows me down.

The Zoo

I have this memory that my parents Take my brother and drive to the zoo. I’m standing on the street outside my first home. I can’t remember if they come back.

Dream II

Here I am in bed. All the light and its absence Hurts my eyes. The water is too far to see. Time makes me sick, and sleep sicker. I am ill, on the edge of my dreams and the sun.

Ask me what I saw, and I cannot tell you with Any certainty. Ask me if this memory is mine. I am only the questions I ask. What will come? This has passed before.

The other day I asked my brother, If he remembers going to the zoo without me. He says that the only memory he has Is standing at the cage with the tigers And being afraid they will eat me.

Art

Swipe, Ghost, Repeat: The Delirious Reality of Dating in Your 20s

By Sophia Diegelmann

Dating in your 20s feels less like a rom-com and more like a fever dream — the kind where you wake up sweating and can’t quite figure out if you’re laughing or crying. It’s a strange, chaotic landscape where a guy’s third message can be, unironically, “I’m so horny rn,” and somehow, that’s not even the worst part. The worst part is that you’re used to it.

One minute, you’re making clever banter about your favourite bands, and the next, he’s asking if you’ve ever “tried choking.” You laugh it off in the group chat — because that’s what you do — but deep down, you wonder if this is just the deal now.

Then there’s the ex-boyfriend’s friend you bump into at the pub. He gives you that awkward, knowing nod because of course he knows. Everyone knows. Your 20s are a small town, even in a big city. You’ve probably matched with his mate on Hinge, too — the one who said, “I’m not really sure what I’m looking for”, in a tone that suggests he absolutely knows, but telling you would ruin the vibe.

The phrase “I don’t know what I’m looking for” deserves its own category of male delusion. It’s never true. He’s looking for something. He’s just hoping you’ll accept that something being half-hearted texts, a situationship that drags on for months, and the occasional “u up?” when he’s drunk.

And let’s not forget the 29-year-old men who somehow still haven’t figured it out. You’d think they’d have a clearer idea by now — they have tax returns and favourite podcasts — but no. They’re “taking things slow” because “work’s hectic,” or they “just got out of something,” but they’d still love to see where things go (spoiler: they go nowhere).

Sometimes, they’ll text you for weeks — flirty, thoughtful, consistent — until you ask the radical question: “So… when are we actually meeting up?”

That’s when the mask slips. Suddenly, they’re “really busy right now,” or they vanish entirely. You’re left wondering if you imagined the whole thing.

And then there are the ones who lead with, “My ex was crazy.” Always a red flag, never a good sign. You can’t help but assume that “crazy” means she dared to ask for clarity or, God forbid, commitment.

It feels like everyone else got a head start on love. Both my cousins are in long-term, healthy relationships; my grandma was married at 19, and my parents met at 24 — which felt ages away when I was a teenager but now feels uncomfortably close. My housemate’s boyfriend is basically a third roommate, my best friend’s happily paired off, and my hometown friend talks about her girlfriend like she’s hung the moon. Meanwhile, I met a guy’s mum on the third date, only for him to later say he’s “not really looking for anything serious.” It’s hard not to feel like I’m falling behind, stuck somewhere between the dating apps and the wedding invites.

I wish I could say I’m above it all — that I see the chaos for what it is and walk away unbothered. But no. I once paid for Hinge Plus. That’s how delirious I’ve become. I convinced myself it would unlock a higher calibre of men, like some sort of dating VIP section. It didn’t. It was the same lineup, just with the added heartbreak of knowing who had already rejected me.

Recently, I deleted the apps. I told myself I was done — no more Hinge, Tinder, or Bumble. No more pretending I’m interested in a man’s love of surfing or “getting off the grid.” But I know I’ll probably redownload them eventually. We all do. The delirium always pulls us back in.

At least this way, it’s for the lore. Because if nothing else, the bad dates, the ghosting, and the unhinged third messages make for excellent stories — and in your 20s, that’s almost as good as a happy ending.

Art by sara

Music As Delirium: The Second Piano Sonata by Pierre Boulez

By Jacob Wu

“I think that music should be collective hysteria and magic, violently modern — along the lines of Antonin Artaud and not in the sense of a simple ethnographic reconstruction in the image of civilizations more or less remote from us.”

In post-war European Art Music, Pierre Boulez was equally as crucial as he was controversial. Crucial, because his work forever changed the course of music history, and controversial, for his direct, arguably unpleasant demeanour.

In February 1945, upon hearing a performance of Schoenberg’s Wind Quintet, Op. 26, conducted by René Leibowitz, Boulez remarked, “It was a revelation to me. It obeyed no tonal laws and I found in it a harmonic and contrapuntal richness and a consequent ability to develop, extend, and vary ideas I had not found anywhere else.”

“Classical tonal thought is based on a universe defined by gravity and attraction; serial thought on a universe in continuous expansion.”

Music as magic and hysteria is exemplified perhaps more in Boulez’s Second Piano Sonata than any other work. Violent and explosive, the musical characteristics of the work seem to have had the same effect on the European music scene.

It was probably the attempt of the Viennese School to revive older forms that made me try to destroy them completely: I mean I tried to destroy the first-movement sonata form, to disintegrate slow movement form by means of the trope, and repetitive scherzo form by the use of variation form, and finally, in the fourth movement, to demolish fugal and canonic forms. Perhaps I am using too many negative terms, but the Second Sonata does have this explosive, disintegrating and dispersive character.

For Boulez, Schoenberg, freeing the musical world from the restraints of tonal laws and gravitation, failed its own resolve. Schoenberg’s commitment to motivic unity, romantic phraseology, and classical forms must all be surpassed, disintegrated and destroyed.

“All contrapuntal voices are equally important: there are no principal nor secondary voices.”

Thus, Schoenberg’s Hauptstimme and Nebenstimme have been destroyed. And what exactly are the aural qualities of a work, where there are no real perceptible lines? The music fights back at any attempt for analysis. In fact, most published analyses contradict each other. The opening bars do provide a motif that runs through the entire piece, but the rhythmic character of it, hidden behind many other contrapuntal lines, become imperceptible.

Hard to see? Also impossible to hear, even with a score and analytical tools in your hands.

The obscurity and deliriousness in Boulez’s writing in the Second Piano Sonata can perhaps be seen in his wholly new approach to the incorporation of historic musical objects.

The B.A.C.H motif is the most quoted motif in the classical canon. Here is the famous example from the autograph of Die Kunst der Fuge:

And here is a second presentation of the same motif:

After Bach, countless composers have used the Bach motif. Whether it’s Liszt in the Fantasy and Fugue on the Theme B-A-C-H, or Casella’s 2 Ricercari sul nome B-A-C-H. Always perceptible. And here is Boulez’s placement of the B.A.C.H. motif, in the final bars of the Second Piano Sonata:

We can observe three things with a single bar here:

1. The motif is reversed in pitch.

2. There is no real presence of any rhythmic cell.

3. They are so far apart in register they become imperceptible.

And thus we have the frame — everything in the half-hour between the first and last bar is equally deliriously written. This is music at its most indescribable point. To say that it is a mess is not mistaken, and yet everything within it is written so carefully.

The Second Piano Sonata is enigmatic, indiscernible, and above all, as delirious a piece of music as there has ever been written.

Here is the first bar of the entire Sonata:

Art

Art

Art by mir

WORONI

We would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which Woroni operates, the Ngunnawal and Ngambri peoples. We pay our respects to Elders past and present. Their land was forcibly stolen, and sovereignty was never ceded.

The name Woroni, which means “mouth”, was taken from the Wadi Wadi Nation without permission. Consultation with First Nations people recommended that Woroni continue to use the word, provided we acknowledge the theft, and continue to strive for better reconciliation in future. Woroni aims to provide a platform for First Nations students to hold the University, its community, and ourselves accountable.

It might sometimes feel as if the worst horrors of colonisation are past, as if they happened in a different, more brutal world than this one. But the same Australian government that took Indigenous children from their families in the 1900s incarcerates children as young as ten years old today, the majority of whom are Indigenous. If we separate ourselves and our times from colonisation, we cannot properly acknowledge and work to amend its long-lasting impact.

This land always was, and always will be, Aboriginal land.