Published in Overland Issue 201 Summer 2010 · Writing / Main Posts Flight Vikki McNaughton i had a bath. life continues so you see it was necessary to have a bath. i turned the light off so the air was blue. there need be no effort wasted by floating in a hot bath, on hiatus from life. on the plane you’d stopped breathing when you saw you were seated next to me. it was, in a way, a victory for me. i’d smiled for the first time in months. my eyes are itchy and my cheeks feel grubby but there’s nothing I can do about that. you can’t wash away tiredness. there’s not a whole lot of dirt on a plane and anyway, clean will suffice for now. you’d gone: you monster, you said, you’d gone: student, mediocre at best, and you’d gone: such an ego, and i, i went, i believed you. i’d believed you. the glass is beginning to fog. my cheeks are flushed and they will think this is a sign of health. through the window, the clouds rise like cathedrals. Vikki McNaughton Vikki McNaughton works and studies part-time. More by Vikki McNaughton › Overland is a not-for-profit magazine with a proud history of supporting writers, and publishing ideas and voices often excluded from other places. If you like this piece, or support Overland’s work in general, please subscribe or donate. Related articles & Essays First published in Overland Issue 228 28 March 202428 March 2024 · Main Posts Why we should value not only lived experience, but also lived expertise Sukhmani Khorana In the wake of this year’s International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, I want to extend the central idea of El Gibbs’s 2022 essay on 'lived expertise' and argue that in media accounts of racism, analytical expertise and lived experience ought to be valued together and even in the same body. First published in Overland Issue 228 5 March 2024 · Main Posts Andrew Charlton’s school assignment Alex McKinnon Australia's Pivot to India exists for three reasons: so that when Andrew Charlton is interviewed on the radio or introduced on Q+A, his bio includes the phrase "he has written a book about Indian-Australian relations"; to fend off accusations that he is another Kristina Keneally engaging in electoral colonialism in western Sydney; and to help the Albanese government strengthen economic and military ties with Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party.