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 2 First published in Overland Issue 228 3 February 20233 February 2023 Fiction Fiction | Romeo and Juliet II: Haunted rentals Georgia Symons The hauntings are actually quite flamboyant here, though. Yeah, come in, come in. Not like my friend Moya’s house—it just has a tool shed that sometimes isn’t there and that’s it. So boring. Yes, you can keep your shoes on. 2 First published in Overland Issue 228 2 February 20233 February 2023 The university Deadly word games: universities and defining antisemitism Nick Riemer In a few weeks, Vice-Chancellors will be discussing a request by a group of federal politicians to endorse the latest weapon in Zionists’ longstanding bid to suppress criticism of Israeli apartheid on campus—the highly controversial definition of antisemitism produced by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). Their decision will constitute a watershed moment for universities’ already somewhat threatened credibility as centres of independent analysis and truth-telling.