Published in Overland Issue 258 2025 · Uncategorized Ex-landfill pastoral Mitchell Welch The Aussie raven plucks its musical ribcage and Blue Ribbon labels fly like white flags at the highest peak visible from the street. Milk bottle molars bite down on the sky from within this gingivitic heap. Roaches pop out gleaming, polished to a sheen from detergent bottles and Coca-Cola cans. The corax picking out its last flight feathers eyeballs the screw-top moon and buries its head in a wire nest festooned with lids. The real victims will be our kids. Ca-caw! Mitchell Welch Mitchell Welch is a writer and communications advisor from Queensland who has worked and lived in Brisbane, Melbourne, Hobart and the Gold Coast. His first book, Vehicular Man, was shortlisted for the Judith Wright Calanthe Award, and is available from Rabbit. More by Mitchell Welch › 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 1 6 November 2026 · Friday Fiction Headland Harry Goddard He must have still been sore. I could tell from the winces he made as he scooted down the trail. Some unspoken agreement of not hitting other people’s children — and the circumstances of me not being that type of kid — spared me from the same punishment. I was taken to my parents who agreed I would have to work off the damages, and I must have mowed the lawn once, or cleaned the family car. 4 November 2026 · Film MIFF, Minotaur and the politics of maternal reception Alicia Byrnes Maternal labour is, in the terms I’ve set out here, not labour at all. Noisy, unfocused, mobile, perhaps even sleepy — it is an affront to arthouse film viewing and therefore unserious.
