Janusz tucks his mouth into his elbow, makes the shape of the word with his lips. He recognises the sound, insectile in the distance, pictures the plane on the runway, propellers whirling, ready to launch. He rolls his head so his cheek rests against his forearm, the open pages of his maths book a pillow beneath.

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.

‘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.

I don’t make the doors. I just fix them. People always think there’s a special trick to it, some training I’ve done. When they ask, I smile but don’t give too much away. Part of the job is being mysterious. Clients expect it. You’ve got a door doing weird shit, you don’t call a repairman expecting him to be normal.

In the building where I work there is an automatic door that opens into a brick wall. I should specify that this door is not an allegory. The door that goes nowhere actually exists. I can show the door to you if you would like to see it. I was first shown the door by a beautiful musician named Joel.

And these passengers, along with the driver, will be unhappy, both as a result of the time you’ve wasted fumbling at the scanner with your bus pass and because of the smell emanating from your long, matted hair, which they’ll have to endure for the rest of your trip. They’ll whisper among themselves as they glare at you and make mock retching gestures.

Clocks should be as fragile as time itself, yet as glorious and colourful as the times you enshrine in your heart, sear into your skin, those minutes and hours that linger in your eyes, even after the light has fled. Clocks should be vivid, as vibrant as the memories that power blood through your shrinking veins.

‘Elastic bag,’ she repeats, holding the jar of starter. This is a question, I think, even though it doesn’t really sound like one (and how could I tell without looking up). I look up. She’s standing there with a smile I can only kind of parse. (Is it proud? Is it tentative? Is it familiar?)

The second time we bring Danny home from the hospital, no-one brings us flowers. No-one texts, no-one calls. No-one sends baby hampers or little foil balloons that say, It’s a boy! Not even my own mother. But I don’t mind. Nothing can spoil this moment. In the hospital carpark I tilt the mirror down to […]

I first became aware of the flaming doll at 7.41am, May 16. This was a Wednesday. Irvine St at that time of day, in the middle of the week, was normally quiet and unremarkable. Greenway was a new, well-ordered suburb, occupied mainly by young families. On a Wednesday morning the most you would expect to hear was a radio or TV, as families ate their breakfast and children prepared for school.

For a second, Rae thinks about leaving them wherever they’ve hidden, finding a secret spot and just waiting out the time until her parents come to collect her. But then she feels the pang of being left out, always the strange quiet one who doesn’t know how to have fun. ‘Ready or not, here I come!’

Symmetrically proportioned with clear eyes, long lashes, even nose and sumptuous lips. Glowing, unblemished skin that reflects the light. A long graceful neck. Smooth décolletage. Perfectly-rounded pert bosom, narrowing to hand-span waist. She would call her—Caryatid, formally, from the Greek. In ancient times, sculpted female figures serving as architectural supports. In Jane’s case, her architectural visage. A mask. An appendage. Her pillar of strength.

Ash came down off the escarpment. At first, I thought it was bugs—swarms of them—but the air didn’t clear either side. I rode my brother’s bike through it. There wasn’t that far to go and I took the long way, swung around corners to add blocks of space. Usually Lou wanted to go someplace no one else was, to the cubby house by the creek or the old train tunnels, but that day he’d called to say meet by the water. I could see him from a way off.

The stupid thing is, I’m dressed up like it’s a job interview when it is most likely an exit interview. That’s the most likely of the two possibilities I can think of. The other is they have a special project in mind for me. ‘We need someone with, what’s the word? (breasts), a fresh perspective who can bring their, how do you say? (ovaries), energy to the project.