You remembered the smell of him. Like milk powder, rimmed with the tang of compost. When you held him, you would breathe in deep, and squeeze him so tight he started to wiggle and huff. He came out smaller than a toaster, then took on the shape of a loaf of bread. Now, he was just starting to get lanky. Knobbly knees and feet so big in their fat, laced shoes, still round-toed.

Screeching the forklift tynes into the drum lifter, he removed each bin and placed them on the platform scales. He had to lick his thumb and rub the worn display panel to read the numbers which he jotted down in a note pad before taking each barrel outside. He lined them up against the cyclone fence in the car park then manoeuvred the plate steel and rods into the workshop. He began returning the more valuable copper and brass barrels to the workshop to be locked up that night.

i feel you shiver-shift against my pillowed fingerprints feel the warmth of me slick your skin {dew-licked and humid} I walked to the gates of the Botanical Gardens in my formal pleated shorts, purchased especially for the occasion. I wanted this experience to be memorable. I wanted to impress.

The story of Steele Rudd’s whirlwind trip to Sydney in 1899—which is a corker, believe me, you’re going to love it—begins with the writer on a train. He sits by the window of his compartment, trembling fingers preening his dark moustache. Slouched beside him is his travelling companion, a young man with a bushman’s hat drawn over his snoring face.

I went upstairs and had a cold shower. Afterwards, downstairs in the kitchen, I swallowed some painkillers for a headache I haven’t been able to shake for a few days. Dad’s voice came in from the courtyard and I went out to where he was sitting on a red plastic stool hunched over something. ‘What’s that?’ I asked. Dad turned around. At his feet sat a small cage housing two white ducks with bright yellow beaks. The kind of ducks you saw in kids’ picture books.

‘We’re not going to tell you who the client is, because we don’t want your creativity, or your capacity for constructing a narrative, to be limited by a product or a brand. Because what we’ll be creating together this semester is more than that. It’s aesthetic, discursive. It’s embodied. Hopefully.’   Joe, our seminar tutor, […]

You died last Tuesday, while we were both sitting on the couch watching a YouTube clip about hummingbird cake. When I think about it, it’s possible you actually died during the recommended video afterward: Super easy beginner’s guide to peanut praline.

But to peddle hope is to profit from unfulfilled promises. Tarantino and Wright pivot to the ’60s defensively, exploiting our shared desire for something better to preserve their legacies without having to address the limits of their ethical worlds. Though it is less immediately obvious, with Utopia Avenue Mitchell exploits that desire, too.

We arrive at night. On the way, traffic clogs the M4 and we move slowly up and over the range. Fog swarms across the road, retreating into wet gullies. Isla falls asleep, dribbling. ‘Thank fuck,’ mutters Jay as he turns the engine off. ‘Two hours, my ass.’ He unfurls long legs. I pull Isla from her booster seat, cheeks hot, arms stuffed into her red corduroy jacket like a fat rag doll. The others are inside, with every light on.

She was standing between rows of bras in Kmart when the pain came. She’d been having twinges all morning, twinges she’d put down to eating two bags of liquorice allsorts the night before, but it wasn’t that kind of pain after all, it was…appendicitis? She grabbed a handful of bras, staggered into the nearest changing room and closed the door.

Out by the sandbar the cockles are thick under the feet, crowding out of the mud at low tide. Toe them up, rinse them off and into the bucket, keeping an eye on the boy. He sits in the mud, squeezing it through his fingers. His too-small tee shirt slides up his belly.

They were skating this mini ramp down by the bike path, Shane and the boys. It was awesome how pedestrians and bike riders, whole families, would stop and watch. Like they were doing a proper demonstration. Pretty bloody fun. They’d change runs based on the foot traffic and the crowds that gathered. When there was a lull, they’d rest perhaps, or practice some new stuff, because when there was a crowd they wanted to put on a show.

Jess tossed and turned in her bed. Far away, she imagined thick sleeves of bull kelp sucking against limestone cliffs. The sea was restless, spreading itself over the crumbling city grid where vehicles dunked and flipped. Houses turned to flotsam as the Earth blinked, the eye of the storm turned away from the sun. There was no Moon—everything was churning liquid, rubbery darkness. She had sunk to the ocean floor, head firmly anchored to the pillow.

We live in a hotel now. Well, for the moment anyway. Until Thursday. Until the money runs out. Everything smells like mushrooms. People come and go, with their conferences and morning corporate functions. This morning, when we filled up on our complimentary breakfast in the small dining room for guests, I felt someone’s eyes on me and curled my lip. The animal in me rising.

Out at the rubbish tip, she was first to spot the old caravan. It sat proud amid the twisted swing-sets, crushed white dishwashers, and dejected hot water systems. ‘If you fix it up maybe we can go up north next winter, Jase?’ Jason was always up for bringing new life where others had abandoned hope. ‘The world has gone mad with all this stuff,’ he’d often say. ‘Why we need all this shit is beyond me.’