culture
fiction
fiction October 23, 2021
Patrick Hagan sits watching an old woman, someone’s gran or nan, loading a boy into a car. BMW i3, as per his salary package, long gone. He studies her dents and guesses she can’t drive, but what’s that matter, she has a BMW and he has a Mazda. The...
fiction October 16, 2021
Selwyn Atchison rumpled over the old coach bridge to come see my Uncle Ferny, who was always first in line when local groups wanted money. The Atchison dray announced itself as the bridge planks paradiddled in the sunlight. The woody music of timber...
fiction October 9, 2021
Five-year-old female Japanese spitz, “Mitzy”. Free to a good home with no children or other pets. It wasn’t until she’d brought the dog home that Jill noticed it. She’d poured herself a glass of pinot grigio. Mitzy had jumped up next to her on the...
fiction October 2, 2021
Did they look like cows? I guess so, Con. Shrunken sky cows with wings and blazed chests. And beaks. What’s a beak? It’s a dreamy sort of a question. A question for off times, shovel leaning, inside from too much rain. A beak, Con, is what a bird...
fiction September 25, 2021
Ready Brooke studied the trio of women clustered around the next table at the pub. Two of them were pregnant – just like her, except not. The third woman was clutching a white zinfandel or something, which seemed surprisingly demure given the...
fiction September 18, 2021
Paintbox, belonging to Isaac Smith, who carried it on the voyage of the Endeavour (1768-1771) and the later voyages of the Resolution (1772-1775 and 1776-1779). Smith was the midshipman cousin of the wife of the captain, the famous Captain Cook...
fiction September 11, 2021
The Ashtown Giant will commit to devouring children at a reduced rate after protracted negotiations with local government ended in a surprise agreement at Ashtown Town Hall Thursday. After calls from community organisers to close his operation, the...
fiction September 4, 2021
Once I could remember my own name, but now I can’t. It wasn’t always thus. And not just with this. Things didn’t always happen in the way they now do, in this order, from these causes, with such consequences. They happened differently, were caused...
fiction August 28, 2021
The river there is like a blindfold. It is a child’s game that spins you around and around and then asks you to find your way without stumbling. You can see across it plain enough and you can see the edge of the west end. You know it’s just across...
fiction August 21, 2021
The wind is trying to kill us. Here in the loose forest that has been shaken and then shaken again, so that trees and bushes and rocks have fallen down the back of the slope’s couch and vanished; perhaps blown by that wind, or perhaps the ridge...
