The veins on Grandpa’s legs protruded like thick tidal lines. Sam and Caleb scrambled to catch up, their toes vanishing and reappearing in the chalky sand as they trailed him homewards.

There was the feverishness of trying to piece together her actions. She could remember some things, like cornering the cashier at that little grocery store near her house and talking at her about aubergine pesto. She remembered the woman’s readiness to laugh at the word ‘aubergine’, at what she probably thought, initially, was a little comedy routine.

The vending machine was broken and had stolen my money. I tried pushing against it subtly and then not so subtly and still I was money-less and chocolate-less, and, worst of all, when I complained to my sister I was told to be quiet and have some respect.

‘Yeah I know, but I’m sad and drinking helps,’ he said, digging through the rubble on his desk – the unpaid bills, notes to his past self, a birthday card from his grandmother and useless silver coins – as he looked for his keys. ‘Are you coming with me or not?’

There was a neat click as May climbed each step of the maple staircase. She didn’t expect to find him on the rug below their bed, on his side, hands cupped into each other like he was sleeping. She sat on the bed above him, flipping off her cream shoes.

Joint runner-up: Overland Victoria University short story prize

Winner: 2013 Overland Victoria University short story prize

Joint runner-up: Overland Victoria University short story prize.

Harlem legs it from the job shop soon as the sour bitch pushes the button for security. Shoots like the fucken wind. She won’t call the coppers, he’s sure of it. Old cow’s just trying to give him a scare. As if he’d been serious anyway about that shit.

Everywhere Kate looked was saltbush and sea beneath a pan of impossible blue sky. She lifted her face and felt the white light fall on her and let it burn away the thought of Rosie sunk in the black hole of her room. Her parents were walking ahead, her mother somehow evanescent, her father as immutable as the geology around him.

We remember my mother’s birthday with red eggs. Grandma shells them with practised fingers. Her lips move, offering thanks to the small plaster Virgin Mary watching from above the sink. She looks tired, the Virgin, the paint peeling from her smock. The radio scratches out its sermons. We eat in the kitchen beside my mother’s photo.

I wake to the unmistakable sound of a man urinating. I must have kicked off the blankets during the night, and when I roll onto the empty side of the bed I see that my bedroom door is wide open. I think about the man whose stream I can hear subsiding, who is probably shaking his penis and leaving coin-sized drips on the bathroom floor and I wonder what my life would be like if I were to marry him.

Two girls with swollen bellies are comparing stretch marks in the girl’s bathroom mirror. It looks as if kittens have clawed out of their insides. ‘Almond oil is fucken useless, man,’ one girl complains. ‘I’ve got three more today,’ her friend replies, scratching at her skin distastefully. ‘Yeah, but you’re tan so can’t see them. I look like a white tiger.’

At her Urban Beekeeper’s Group, Michael Isthmus had quite a reputation as a ‘botherer’. Swimming against a tide of popular support for the bees, he’d been diligently policing the New York City Council’s ban on city beekeeping for the past five years. He was charged with the job of monitoring hundreds of covert beekeepers who were establishing hives all over the city.

My friend, I’ve come to the conclusion, is selfish. She has a new boyfriend. They spend all day in my friend's room. I hear the vibration of their voices through the wall. Laughter mostly and sometimes sounds I wish I didn't hear. Before her boyfriend, my friend was depressed. It used to be me who would lie next to her in bed. I would tell her jokes to make her laugh and stories about all the bad luck I’ve had with men.