Published in Overland Issue 207 Winter 2012 · Uncategorized Islands Andy Quan I am sleeping tonight side by side with my mother on spring and feather, matching queen-sized mattresses, in the adjoining room my brother and his family. We’ve escaped Vancouver where father has died for Victoria’s quaint tea and saucers, halibut and chips, cream-filled chocolates, Salish art, a visit to eldest brother’s duplex, parks for the grandkids to run free. Distract us. Today, I leveraged grief for a table at a packed restaurant. How long can we get away with that? Mom ponders. Now, she surprises me, channel- surfing: CSI New York, Evening News. Rest is all I want, the narrow corridor between our beds, thirty-five years between us, our islands of sorrow barely visible to each other but I understand my role as company, as witness. Andy Quan Andy Quan is the author of four books, including two books of poetry, the most recent of which is Bowling Pin Fire. He has lived in Sydney since 1999 where he edits, writes, cycles, facebooks, watches reality TV cooking shows and coaxes rainbow lorikeets to his balcony. Visit him here at www.andyquan.com. More by Andy Quan › 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 21 February 202521 February 2025 · The university Closing the noose: a dispatch from the front line of decasualisation Matthew Taft Across the board, universities have responded to legislation aimed at rectifying this already grim situation by halting casual hiring, cutting courses, expanding class sizes, and increasing the workloads of permanent staff. This is an unintended consequence of the legislation, yes, but given the nefarious history of the university, from systemic wage theft to bad-faith bargaining, hardly a surprising one. 19 February 2025 · Disability The devaluing of disability support Áine Kelly-Costello and Jonathan Craig Over the past couple of decades, disabled people in much of the Western world have often sought, or agreed to, more individualised funding schemes in order to gain greater “choice and control” over the support we receive. But the autonomy, dignity and flexibility we were promised seems constantly under threat or out of reach, largely because of the perception that allowing us such “luxuries” is too expensive.
