Published in Overland Issue 205 Summer 2011 · Uncategorized Fresh Kill Cath Drake Set off later than we meant to. At home, we’d been nagging about dishes, shopping lists, the bike with the chain hanging. Now, with the light going, we flash our mobile phones to find a path in the forest back to the train station. Pure white feathers flare across black mud. The blood is cold, solid, no splattering. So it doesn’t look fresh. I’m not sure if we came past this spot earlier. Its body opened, luminous red, neck gone, eyes empty; abandoned to death. We stand over it. Each fine-boned feather perfect. There’s no evidence of a criminal, no tracks, only soft blank mud; we heard no struggle, no screams, no scuttling away in the dark. We keep walking, become disorientated, walk past it again, this time only white feathers strewn in pitch dark. The body is stolen, and still we’ve not heard or seen anything. When we get to the sturdy well-lit bitumen I can’t look at him. Just say: I can’t see you anymore. Cath Drake Cath Drake is an Australian from Perth who moved to London in 2001. She has been published in anthologies and magazines in the UK, Australia and the US. She currently works in communications for a children’s charity, focusing on life stories. Her website is www.cathdrake.wordpress.com/. More by Cath Drake › 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 12 May 202412 May 2024 · Cartoons “Our husbands shall not come to us, reeking with carnage”: the anti-war meaning of Mother’s Day Sam Wallman What we now call Mother's Day was born of the anti-war movement. In 1870, Julia Ward Howe called for an annual 'Mother's Peace Day': "Our husbands shall not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caress and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn what we have been able to teach them..." 10 May 202410 May 2024 · Friday Poetry Disorientation John Kinsella A strong south-westerly cuts through the shutters and wakes me out of synch. Disorientated, I try to start a different story but have to secure the window. I am harried and haunted by the horrors of Du Pont. I cannot get away from them whispering at each node of modernity. Where will I arrive after this?