Published in Overland Issue 224 Spring 2016 · Uncategorized Impulse Zoe Barnard I wanted to know, in a pause between sentences, whether the fine, transparent step between nail and skin was designed to be removed. Smoothly, the cuticle tears away, like a loose thread and blood wells after a moment, flesh overcoming the shock of being asked to undress. I wanted to know, walking home from the station, if the joints would so easily bruise and swell when my knuckles pressed against another’s body. If muscle and bone resemble walls and fences, then the pain flares and yellow meets purple in an expanding: yes. I wanted to know, when I could first drive on my own, how it would feel to journey into a power pole or through the railing along the coast. At the empty intersection, in the middle of summer, when the road is melting and sea salt cracks in the air I tell that voice, not yet. Zoe Barnard Zoë Barnard is a freelance editor and writer, who lives and works in Perth. More by Zoe Barnard › 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 First published in Overland Issue 228 27 September 2023 · Sport When the sport circus comes on Country Jenny Fraser The next huckster in the carnival of sport is the upcoming 2032 Brisbane Olympic Games. If we want aspects of it to be in line with Aboriginal protocol, we need action from across the four winds of the world. If it’s not done right we need solidarity and protest just the same. We are each other’s safety net in this theatre of sport. As a senior Aboriginal woman activist once told me, ‘we are all only as good as we negotiate’. First published in Overland Issue 228 25 September 202326 September 2023 · The university Solidarity but only among managers, or the future of the university sector Hannah Forsyth The process continued during Covid. Jobs were being cut due to the threats posed by the pandemic, yet more scholars were being recruited. Nice people, good at their job. But why are we doing this, we kept asking. Management kept telling us we have a funding crisis (which often turned to a surplus in the end), so why are we also on a hiring spree? All along it looked like it could end badly, for all of us.
