FINAL_BOOK_PDF

Visible Ink 2017
The End, Issue 29.
Published by Visible Ink and Clover Press
Professional Writing and Editing
RMIT University
School of Media and Communication
23-27 Cardigan Street,
Carlton VIC 3053
About this book
Editorial
visibleinkmag@gmail.com
www.visibleink.net
Visible Ink – The End, Issue 29.
ISBN 978-0-9944930-5-7
Copyright © 2017
Copyright remains with the individual creators. Apart from any fair dealing for
the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the
Copyright Act 1968, no part of this publication may be reproduced by any process
without prior written permission.
Printed on recycled paper
Typeset in Adobe Carlson Pro
Designed and typeset by Jack Callil
Cover art by Lily Hawkins
Printed by Pinnacle Print Group
1/87 Newlands Road,
Reservoir, VIC 3073
http://www.pinnacleprintgroup.com.au/
Supported by RMIT Link Arts & Culture
At this point in time, we collectively feel it is the end. Slouching
towards the apocalypse. But not many people are aware that the word
apocalypse, translated from ancient Greek, means ‘an uncovering’.
We asked our authors to show us what this meant to them. Through
this, different interpretations were unearthed—endings are not
always terrible: some are freeing, some are heartbreaking, some we
can’t escape, but, most importantly, some we can decide on.
2
We acknowledge the Wurundjeri People of the Kulin Nations as
the traditional owners of the land on which this anthology was
created. We pay our respects to Elders past, present and future. We
acknowledge that underneath the concrete and asphalt this land
always has been and always will be yours.

B Foreword
Ania Walwicz
FICTION
POETRY
VISUAL
E
L
T
Honey and the
landlord in the attic
Tanya Vavilova
Emergency broadcast
Simone Corletto
Ear today
Simon Lowe
g
n
r
Resurrection machine
Jay Ludowyke
Residential tenancy agreement,
term ending 12 June
Natalea Iskra
Solid foundations
Bernadette Eden
8
;
d
After life
Georgina Woods
I will start my sentences
without you
Luke J Bodley
Aazaan
Preetika Anand
D
f
#
The end
Paul Heppell
The lonely planet
Jo Lane
Flora tears
Juxi Bonn
9
Your daughter, the armadillo
Lucas Chance
w
Safe and sound
Louise Hopewell
q
Wild water
J Richard Wrigley
FLASH
=
King of nothing
Sophie Clews
5
Miranda
Jo Pugh
v
Caring for Country
Brenda Saunders
S
Cusp
Matthew George
"
A request for violence
Kiara Lindsay
c
Akilta
Rebecca Douglas

Foreword
Ania Walwicz
The end…dark…dumb darkness…what do I do now…stormy
weather…boohoo…it gets hotter…and colder…much…I can see
it…can I see it…do I believe me now…the news tells me and won’t
tell me now…that somebody shoots somebody…I can hear it…
tell me it isn’t true…tell me…you’re coming back to me…tell me
that everything is alright but it’s not alright now…no…I pretend
that everything is alright…they pretend that everything is alright
now…they don’t believe me…she won’t speak to me…I don’t talk to
me…there are armies all over and all the time…they shoot people
with hovercraft…they shoot people with drones…I can hear one…
buzz me…the cinema shows a dancer dancing round…with lights
and screens and electric …razzle dazzle…screens everywhere lead
me and lead me…a labyrinth…I am a bull jumper…a ball of fire…
what is real now…a slippage slips me…words break…a current…
breaks …hurricane comes to break my house down…stupid cupid…
idiots laugh…hahaha…nobody believes anything…blurry image on
intercom…who is speaking…the mirror tells me…head space…they
think this…but are too scared to say…I admit…who is this old lady…
someone told me…that it works out…but it doesn’t…I do comedy
now…black coffee…how are you…she says …it’s all about me…I
don’t want to see but I see now…cruel hot city…falls down…don’t eat
…don’t eat me, I have three children…but I eat me now…that’s all
there is…the mouth …open…not i…speaking…talk talking…but I
don’t believe me…television tells me…I read me…in my selfie…I buy
something…this is a coat…that I got…they look at their phones…
all the time…wobble street…no one rings them…I have my name on
this…ania walwicz…and photos on my website…that means I exist…
or if they can’t trace me…where is me…face fits key…automatic doors
open…I am lonely…but I’m sharp in high hotels…looking down on
me…cars swerve…every morning on the news…I am famous…do
you know who I am?... who am i…she says see you soon…coming
back from…plane falls…brexit exit…a city in a city…separates…say
Barcelona with a tongue…out…war in a war…which one now…war
to come…rocket man…fake news…they say deal…robot teacher…
on a machine…machine speak now…this machine speaks now…ah
ah ah…the machine writes me…I will learn me…you better work…
this better work me…we fit in…we have to fit and fit in…one foot
after the other…right,left,right left…they say we are proud of what we
have done…they lie all the time…this is rigged…you can see…d’you
want to go on with this purchase?...d’you wanna…they talk about
eating and cooking…and buying…always buying…I went to a show
where I saw…I went to a saw…see-saw…where I saw…but I forget
now…I want to forget me…but I don’t forget me…oh don’t forget
me oh my darling…they don’t believe the weather…they don’t believe
anything now…just to have fun…just another hour…I have fun now…
at least…something to do while…everything breaks…the end of the
world…the road…homeless in a home…you made a mess…I will
clean it…but they don’t…dirty sea…hot water…breeds…a monster…
what d’you say to me now…nasty girls…stupid cupid…they lie that
smokeless, sugarless, healthy…I am an advertiser…I intrude…I am
a bot…I worm in…nasty nasty…this comes apart in me…I can feel
it…I make money…I am a virus…a story frightens me…what will
happen next…tell me…I’m too scared to look…forecast of a hot
day to come…50 degrees…a tornado comes…hurricane city…this is
business here…we do business …no matter what…d’you want to go
on with this?...art business…nasty…I sell me…that’s all… low carb
breads…low gi sugar…I will say anything I want…my name is mister
twister…ice breaks and melts…icicle melts…now I’m angry…now I
can feel angry…make a fist…the lawyer in an adversary position…I
argue a case against me…and I win…ice free ports transport…coal
and coal that we call clean now…I will call a coal…be clean…but it
won’t…it is dirty…hot city with no tv now…I know how it will be…I
invest in the army…in my vest and gun on…I am general…I have a
medal on me…
1
2

Honey and the
landlord in the attic
Tanya Vavilova
Our ramshackle terrace in Redfern, shared by seven, is falling apart,
quite literally. The kitchen ceiling collapsed last week, squashing the
chairs and table flat. Adam took photos of the damage and called it ‘a
work of art’. Whorls of black mould decorate the walls, and everything
leaks and stinks like damp laundry hung up inside too long. The wind
is battering the windows and walls. It’s been raining nonstop for fortytwo
days.
‘Ellie, we need two more buckets,’ Lakshi tells me.
‘There aren’t any,’ I say, sipping my tea at the kitchen counter.
‘What?’
‘THERE ARE NO MORE BUCKETS.’
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake.’
‘Here, use this.’ I hand Lakshi an old, charred saucepan.
‘Ellie! Why don’t you make yourself useful?’
‘You know I’m not good in emergencies,’ I say. It’s true. I panic
whenever called upon to apply first aid or dial triple zero. I’m also a
perfectionist, so I avoid doing anything I suspect I might not get right.
‘Well, make me a cup of tea then,’ Lakshi snaps.
‘Sure.’ I will the kettle to boil with my eyes. Nothing happens. People
are always demanding too much.
‘Where’s my tea, El?’
‘I’m moving out of this shithole,’ I say to no one in particular.
We’re always threatening to leave, every time something breaks.
Jim Beam strides into the kitchen, his hair a wet tangle, looking real
3 The end Paul Heppell
4

Honey and the landlord in the attic
mad. I can only assume he hasn’t managed to patch the roof up outside.
‘I’m moving out,’ he says.
‘Oh yeah? Where would you go?’
‘John’s living under the bridge, I could join him,’ he says. ‘It’s gotta
be drier than this rathole. They got this bonfire and they roast those
purple potatoes, you know the ones. And they drink water straight out
of the harbour.’
He means the Harbour Bridge. The minister has decked out the
underside with portaloos and blue tarpaulins. And if you donate bone
marrow every month, no one bothers you much.
‘Jim, you’d get sick of potatoes,’ I say.
Nikki agrees with me, walking into the kitchen. She’s wrapped in a
blue bath towel, the bobby pins in her hair jutting out like spikes.
‘New hole,’ she says, pointing upward.
‘This is what I mean, that hole’s the size of a tomato,’ Jim says,
indignant.
We all come and stand beside him.
I wring water out of my dress into the nearest bucket; it’s faded red,
cracked and older than my mother.
‘Ellie, where the fuck’s the tea at?’
‘It’s coming.’ I drag myself over to the sideboard and press the kettle
button. I don’t really have telekinetic powers, though I like to make out
like I do. I measure out two heaped teaspoons of Cheer Up Sunshine
and pour boiling water into the teapot.
‘Ellie, could you pass a cup?’ Nikki asks.
‘The one with the kangaroo ok?’
‘I want the scrabble mug.’
‘“H for Harry” or “G for Godiva”?’
Cheer Up Sunshine was a gift from Flo, my ex-girlfriend. It’s green tea
with a smattering of guarana berries or something like that. ‘What have
you got to be sad about?’ Flo used to say. ‘Well, there’s my depression,’
I’d remind her. ‘Oh that,’ she’d say.
One day, when Flo was at work, I chucked her stuff out the thirdfloor
window and watched the neighbours fossick for knick-knacks,
shoes and leather. A teenage girl with an undercut made off with Flo’s
Tanya Vavilova
vintage pair of Jeffrey Campbells. I laughed behind the curtains.
While I sip my tea and reminisce, the others plug up the holes in the
walls with old rags. A bit here, a bit there. I shout: Plug it up! Plug it
up! Plug it up! I’m thinking of poor bleeding Carrie, of course. Nikki
tells me to shut it.
‘This next rag’s going in your mouth, babe,’ she says.
She doesn’t get my humour.
Afterwards, we crawl into Clara’s bed and put on our respirators. The
green air purifiers, cheaply made, leave imprints on our pale, papery
skin. We look like giant, carnivorous insects. Better that than inhaling
toxic fumes, though.
I spot some strange rust-coloured spots fanning out from one corner
of the doona. Honey II wriggles in and pokes her little nose out, resting
her face on my shoulder.
A few weeks ago, the eaves outside my third-floor bedroom window
were torn off by the wind, landing on the footpath below, rusty nails
pointing skyward. I ran out in my bathrobe, my boobs poking out, and
saw a mangled paw peeking out from beneath the timber.
My rotting eaves had squashed Honey I.
The whole street turned out for the funeral, including the nasty
Wilson children who used to throw pebbles at Honey. Lakshi said a
few words, so did Adam, and I served pickled onions and frankfurters.
When Mr Wilson complained about my catering, I socked him and
told him to respect the dead. Someone called the police and that was
the end of poor Honey’s wake.
Honey II licks me and, for a moment, she looks just like the first Honey.
But what do I know? My eyes are streaming from the dust and mould
and whatever other toxins thrive here. I might even be allergic to the
cat.
‘Shove over, will ya?’ Jim Beam is always complaining about falling
off the mattress.
‘You shove over.’
5 6

Honey and the landlord in the attic
‘Tuck your knees in,’ I say, helpfully.
Nikki’s underarms smell like damp forest. I nudge her in the ribs.
‘Shove over,’ I hiss.
We shower ever second day, except Nikki who has a water phobia.
At the moment, with the help of Clara (a trained-now-unemployed
psychologist), she can comfortably look at a teaspoon of water.
‘Nikki, please,’ I say, ‘have a bath tomorrow, ok?’
‘Piss off, Ellie.’
We have a version of this conversation every night.
In the morning, Louie the landlord pays us a visit. Since the rains
started, Louie has become a grey-haired fixture in our home, pottering
around, painting this, painting that. The superficial ‘improvements’ seem
bizarre given the prospect of another collapsed ceiling and so we start to
suspect he plans on selling the place. We know lots of other desperate
students, immigrants and creative-types who would love to get their hot
little hands on a shithole like this.
Louie likes to do all the repairs himself; it’s his special brand of ‘cost
reduction'. He mixes my name up and raises my blood pressure. Clara
says this is no good for me—he makes me violent. Usually, we do some
breathing exercises and knock down trees with baseball bats. This helps,
a little.
‘Been living here long, love?’ Louie asks, when I open the door.
‘Oh, ’bout six years,’ I say, rolling my eyes.
‘Hannah, isn’t it?’
‘I’m Ell-ie.’
‘No need to be cranky, love.’
If he calls me love one more time, I might just snap his rubberchicken
neck. But I don’t want to upset Clara. While he disappears
upstairs, I make another batch of Cheer Up Sunshine. Honey II jumps
on my lap and we talk about our plans for the future. I tell Honey to get
out while she still can.
‘Follow your heart,’ I say.
She snickers.
Out of the two us, the cat has more sense.
‘Hannah?’ Louie calls, coming down the stairs.
Tanya Vavilova
‘It’s Ell-ie.’
‘Come look at the windowsills. They look real nice.’
I follow his watermelon bum up the narrow stairs. I wonder how
many regular-sized bottoms might be made from his rump? At least six
or seven. Maybe eight. He tells me how lucky I am to have a landlord
like him.
‘If you had a different landlord, you wouldn’t be so lucky,’ he says.
‘You’re a regular Mother Theresa,’ I tell him.
Our front door is rotting and splintering, mushrooms grow in the
corridor, and when we shower we take a saltshaker with us to ward off
the leeches. I don’t need to be told how lucky I am.
I wonder why he’s painted the windowsills? The windows rattle and
the glass has come clean off the pane—dash of paint won’t do anything.
And what was wrong with natural wood, anyway?
He spreads his arms out.
‘Ta-da!’
The glass is smeared with fresh white paint and my bedroom floor
is covered in little flakes of what, optimistically, could be said to look
like snow.
When Louie is out of earshot, I curse him to hell.
The fucker has painted my windows shut.
In spring, we fumigate. We are on first-name basis with our pest control
guy, the sweet-natured Jordan. We call him for rats, roaches, bird mites,
ants, termites, spiders and those new-generation insects that are a cross
between turtles and black widow spiders.
He brings me red roses and those sticky caramels in heart-shaped
boxes. When I protest, he tells me I don’t need to reciprocate his love.
‘Let me love you,’ he says.
Seeing as how others aren’t falling over themselves to love me, sure,
ok.
‘But just for now, until I find someone else,’ I tell him.
Jordan agrees.
‘Flowers are hard to come by these days. I know they’re expensive.
I mean, look, you could be saving for a little studio in some concrete
bunker in Wolli Creek,’ I tell him. ‘You’d have enough money for a
7 8

Honey and the landlord in the attic
deposit in twenty, maybe twenty-five years.’
The roses stop arriving on my doorstep after that.
In summer, our cramped terrace heats up like a pizza pocket. There’s no
cross-breeze, no aircon, and when we pass each other in the corridor,
our torsos stick together.
The heat is driving us batty. It’s all we can talk about.
I’ve never been so cranky or violent; I hate everyone and everything.
My mum is coming to visit so we have to tidy this dump—she makes
me so, so nervous—Nikki still hasn’t washed, and Jim Beam has drunk
all the fucking bourbon, and there’s no ice, anyway.
When Louie comes to the door on Monday to demand the rent, I’m
already pretty wound up and I hit him over the head with a saucepan.
There’s a hollow clang and he slumps forward onto the lino.
‘Fuck, Ellie!’
Nikki is screaming.
‘What are you doing? Is he dead?’
I roll him over. ‘Nope. Come on, let’s tie him up.’
‘And put him where?’ Nikki asks, turning a lovely radish-pink.
‘What about my room?’ I say, ‘he might like the freshly painted
windowsills.’
I’m trying to take more initiative—and I think it’s paying off. No
one questions my behaviour, not even Clara. This does worry me a little.
We hide Louie in the draughty attic above my room, and slip pieces
of toast between the wooden slats.
We don’t pay rent anymore and everyone agrees this arrangement is a
big improvement. The only person who objects on ‘moral grounds’ is
Jim Beam—and so he moves under the Harbour Bridge. A week in, he
dies of dengue.
At first, I feel bad about keeping Louie locked up, but now that we’ve
settled into a routine of sorts, even Louie seems to be enjoying himself.
He’s even started on renovations, put in some plumbing, strung some
fairy lights between the rafters.
Sometimes we visit him. We squeeze ourselves in between broken
springs on the miniature couch and sprawl on his dusty floor.
Tanya Vavilova
‘You know, it isn’t so bad here,’ Louie says, examining the new carpet
we give him. It’s one of those old, faded Turkish rugs that some of our
grandparents had but covered in mildew. We tell Louie we can’t spare
anything else.
‘You’re lucky to have a carpet at all,’ we tell him. And we believe it.
He is lucky to have people like us.
‘I’m not complaining. I like it here, fewer responsibilities. Plus, my
night vision’s improved,’ Louie tells us.
For his fiftieth birthday, we take the smoke detector off the wall, and
light up a Betty Crocker like a warzone. We even get him a cat, Honey
III.
I take Flo back and together we look after Louie in the attic. Because
we no longer have to pay rent, Flo and I get to eat out once in a while
and even buy warm clothes and proper rain gear. Flo buys a new pair of
ridiculously high Jeffrey Campbells. We book flights to Tasmania. Most
of the population there live underground, in a network of burrows,
surviving on mushrooms and a peculiar kind of nut.
‘It’s poverty tourism,’ I complain to Flo.
‘Babe, it’s all we can afford. You want to go on a holiday or not?’
‘This is so fucked.’
Flo and I decide to get married on our return. Louie has started seeing
another rehabilitated landlord, a Mr Hockie, and, in the spirit of
generosity, we invite him and Louie to the wedding, along with Clara
and Nikki and Lakshi and Adam and Harry and Godiva. We make an
effigy of Jim Beam and prop him up against the bar—he would’ve loved
that. We wear tuxedos and drink bourbon and make merry until curfew.
It rains every day now. Flo’s eggs have shapeshifted into sperm, thanks
to new developments in science. We have children, first one then two
then three, and so continue the sordid cycle of life. Louie is our kids’
godfather, and we let him out of the attic for each birth. He seems to
appreciate it, and we appreciate him. Yes, things are definitely better
now.
9 10

Simone Corletto
Emergency
broadcast
Simone Corletto
The grainy footage flickers on the computer monitor and the speakers
crackle as music starts to play. A large brass band, all dressed in blue,
stands in front of an old brick building with white pillars. It’s strangely
moving—in a classic, timeless sort of way. Like playing ‘Ave Maria’ at
a funeral. But I guess that was always the intended effect of the Turner
doomsday video. One final anthem to play out humanity.
‘Is this the song from the Titanic movie?’ I ask quietly. It feels
sacrilegious to break the silence, but I can’t handle the intensity of
sitting in this dark office with Britain’s most obnoxious breakfast-show
host—who I once declared I wouldn’t date if he were the last man on
Earth—hovering over my shoulder. Especially since now, he might be
the last man on Earth.
‘It’s the song from the actual Titanic,’ Rob corrects. ‘The band played
this as the ship sank to its watery grave. Beautiful, isn’t it?’
‘Haunting,’ I reply.
He sits, perched on the edge of his wheelie chair beside me, hands
clasped together under his chin, bleary blue eyes not leaving the screen.
A single tear drips down his cheek and gets lost in four-day stubble. If
he was anyone else, I would attribute this to allergies, but I’ve seen him
breakdown at videos of baby horses taking their first steps. ‘It’s a shame
they never got to use it.’
‘I thought you just said—’
‘I meant this video,’ he corrects. ‘Even if it is thirty years old, it was
intended to air as long as CNN still existed.’
I sit back and shrug, and pull my hair into a ponytail. ‘I mean, we
haven’t had contact with the States. Maybe they did air it. If anyone was
around to watch it.’
‘Right, right, of course. But even if they didn’t, at least America had
something prepared for this very occasion.’ He leans forward to start
the video again. ‘Unlike us.’
The music starts to play again and it doesn’t have the same impact it
had the first time. Now it sounds menacing.
‘You realise it’s weird that you even have this video casually on your
desktop.’ I push back from the desk but my wheels get caught on the
blanket of Rob’s makeshift bed. I kick it out the way. ‘Not stashed
in your work folders or on some old USB, but literally saved to your
desktop.’ I still don’t know why he’s crashing on the floor with bedding
from the prop department instead of sleeping on the large sofa by the
door, which he’s covered with boxes.
‘Weird?’ Rob looks genuinely offended. ‘This is just good journalism.’
‘At the very least, it’s pretty morbid. Like that weird couple who
were hording pickled onions in their home-made bunker, who you
interviewed last year.’
‘Hey, I bet that couple are living it up right now with their threeyears’
worth of onions.’
‘Yes, they’ve really cornered the market of this post-apocalyptic
economy.’ I roll my eyes; although, now I mention it, maybe they were
onto something. Without banks, I suppose the pound is worthless.
Which means all my student loans are wiped. I guess there are upsides
to the apocalypse. ‘The point is, it’s a little too convenient that you had
this video so readily available.’
‘What are you trying to imply, Trina? That I knew all this was
coming?’ He gestures around us, almost knocking the framed photo of
himself off the desk. ‘That we’d wake up one day and find the world had
turned into one massive garbage fire, toxic radiation trapping us in the
office as possibly the only two humans left alive?’
11
12

Emergency broadcast
Simone Corletto
Hearing it said out loud, it does sound ridiculous. ‘I mean, no. But—’
‘And no offence, you’re the best producer I’ve ever worked with, and
a very lovely person, but if I could have chosen who to be trapped with
at the end of the world, I would have picked someone more, uh—’
I glare, daring him to finish the thought.
‘Anyway, I think on some level, the political climate considered, we
all expected something like this to happen,’ he mumbles, turning back
to the computer and restarting the video.
I zip up the promotional TARDIS hoodie I’ve stolen from marketing
and lean back in my chair, watching the video again. As much as I
hate to admit it, he’s not completely wrong. We’ve been talking about
the world ending since the millennium, to the point where spooky
prophecies from old women in remote villages and scientific doomsday
predictions weren’t even guaranteed hit ratings. But how many of us
thought it would actually happen? What would I have done differently
if I had known? Probably not have been such a workaholic that I spent
most nights falling asleep at my desk instead of going home. But then
again, if I hadn’t been here proofreading scripts last Saturday night
and instead did something more normal for a woman in her late 20s, I
probably wouldn’t have survived.
‘You understand why I’m showing this to you, right?’ Rob ventures as
the screen goes dark again.
‘You want us to create our own end-of-the-world video?’ I offer. I
was worried he might try something like this once we got the generator
working. But that’s the price for finally being able to resuscitate my
phone.
‘Exactly!’ He grins, his artificially whitened teeth glow in the dim
light. ‘But one that’s a little more localised. More modern.’
‘I see several problems with this plan. Most notably, I think the
timing’s a bit off,’ I reply. ‘And secondly, and it’s related to the first point,
not sure how much talent we have available to perform. And what song
would we use? This would take weeks of planning. We can’t just film
Jedward, assuming they’re even still alive, singing “God save the queen”.’
‘You’re right. I think it would be better to go with unknowns on this.
A big flashy name would just pull focus from the song,’ Rob says, before
adding, ‘Although, maybe slowed down and with more brass, it could be
quite moving.’
‘You’re missing the point, Rob. It’s too late for this sort of broadcast.
And even if there are other survivors out there who miraculously have
power and working televisions, the last thing they need right now is
another depressing reminder that everything they’ve known and loved
is gone forever.’
Rob stares at me before slowly nodding. ‘You’re absolutely right.’
Finally, some sanity. ‘Well, obviously.’
‘We can’t make an end-of-the-world broadcast.’
‘Of course not.’
‘Because it’s not the end of the world.’ He gets up and strides over to
the whiteboard on the wall, rolling up the sleeves of his crumpled white
shirt, which I’m fairly sure he slept in. If only all the viewers who voted
him Britain’s Sexiest Man could see him now.
I lean back in the high-backed office chair and cross my arms as I
watch him wipe off the old writing from the board with his palm. ‘I
mean, for all intents and purposes—’
‘No, you’re right. Society as we knew it may be dead in the water but
it’s not the end. Not as long as there are still people around.’ He picks
up a marker and starts writing.
‘We don’t even know if there are other survivors.’
‘Not yet, but if we managed to survive the blast, statistically there are
other people. Scared and desperate people who will need the one thing
that always brings humanity together in the face of adversity.’
I pinch the bridge of my nose; I feel him about to propose another
one of his big, ridiculous ideas, and the network head isn’t around to
shut it down. ‘A new iPhone?’
‘Hope.’
I was afraid he’d say that.
‘We need to create something—a show—for all of us trying to live
what’s left of our lives,’ he continues. ‘Perhaps some sort of variety show.
With survival information, like Ten top ways to create dinner from those
13 14

Emergency broadcast
Simone Corletto
scraps you salvaged from the wasteland, and How to prepare for winter
when you’ve already burnt all your neighbours’ furniture.’
‘Those titles are far too long.’
‘Oh, you could do a knitting segment! That’s an important survival
skill. And I know you know how. I’ve seen all those scarves and hats you
wear around the office.’
‘It’s crochet. And–’
‘And it doesn’t all have to be survival. These people need entertainment
as well,’ he adds, drawing stars around the word ‘entertainment’ on
the whiteboard. ‘Some nice, healthy escapism from their now terrible,
terrible existence.’
I reach back to the wall behind me and switch on the main light.
‘You can’t be serious.’
‘Why not?’ He frowns. ‘We’re in a television station, after all. If you
ask me, it’s fate that we would end up here, of all places, when the world
not-ends.’
‘It’s less fate and more that we both struggle to understand the
concept of work-life balance.’
‘I’ve always found that to be a strange phrase. Work IS life.’ He
shakes his head. ‘Anyway, it’s a good thing. Now we’re here and our
workplace-turned-post-apocalyptic-home can become our workplace
once more. And even better, we can finally use the big stage—now that
damn dancing show is cancelled.’
Cancelled is one way to put it. ‘We don’t have a crew. I don’t know
how to run any of the equipment. I just ran the people,’ I say.
‘Then we’ll have to recruit others: cameramen, sound guys, interns
who make coffee. We’ll rally together other survivors. Give them all
something to work towards. It’ll be just like the Great Depression,’ he
replies. ‘People need stories, Trina. They need entertainment. Just as
much as they need food and water.’
‘I don’t know about that.’ Now he’s going over the top.
‘You know it’s true. Stories give us hope, give us purpose. I know you
know it. I’ve seen your resume. You started off in med school. Why did
you drop out to work in television?’
I don’t know what’s more alarming: that he’s seen my resume or that
his ridiculous analogy is starting to work. ‘You mean, aside from the fact
that I was having a rough semester and the job seemed easier than resitting
my anatomy exam?’
‘Because you believe in the power of stories,’ Rob says dramatically. ‘I
mean, we both know that the pay would’ve been better almost anywhere
else.’
‘Didn’t you buy a second Bentley last month?’
‘I meant for the crew. The point is, other people will believe in our
cause if we believe it. And it’s a grand cause, indeed.’ He gestures to the
video. ‘The Americans were wrong. There’s no “end of the world”. Not
in the fire-and-brimstone biblical sense they were thinking of. No, there
are only new beginnings.’
I glance at the whiteboard and see that he’s doodled a stick-figure
image of himself on a stage surrounded by cameras, probably making a
speech as grandiose as this.
‘And new beginnings require something that combines the familiarity
of the old world with guidance for the new one.’ He brings his hands
together in a gesture that feels lifted from a TED talk. ‘And this will be
our mission, our life’s work. Our greatest show the BBC has ever aired.
Even better than Bake off.’
It’s impossible to reason with him when he’s this worked up. I
suppose making a show is better than my previous end-of-the-world
plan: nothing. ‘Do you have a name for this new show?’
Rob pauses, cupping his chin thoughtfully. ‘We can workshop this,
but how about Emergency broadcast?’
‘Seems a bit contrived, but I suppose we can work on that later.’
‘So, you’re in?’ His eyes light up, and despite the dark circles and his
un-moussed hair, he starts to resemble the old Rob who would stride
into the studio irritatingly chipper at 4am every morning.
‘Yes, fine, I’m in. But you’re not getting me in front of the camera.’
‘I always said I was fine without a co-host,’ he shrugs.
‘And you’re only allowed one pun per episode.’
He frowns. ‘Now, that’s not fair. You can’t censor art.’
15 16

Emergency broadcast
‘That’s literally my job. Don’t you think these people have suffered
enough?’
‘Three puns and I get to end each episode with a song.’
My whole body shudders at the idea. ‘Four puns. You can sing once
a week but no Queen. You are not Freddy Mercury.’
‘Well of course, no one’s Freddy Mercury.’ He holds out his hand.
‘You drive a hard bargain, Trina, but you’ve got a deal.’
I shake. He grins and I suddenly feel like I’m making a terrible
mistake. ‘Just so we’re clear, I’m still not going to sleep with you.’
He looks confused. ‘Of course not. We’ve got far more important
things to do.’
For some reason, I feel hurt at his sudden dismissal. ‘Well, good.’
‘So, don’t you start developing any feelings for me. It would threaten
the integrity of our professional engagement,’ he says with complete
sincerity.
I laugh, and for the first time in almost a week, it doesn’t feel like the
end of the world.
Cusp
Matthew George
A bottle emerges from somewhere as the train moves off from the
station. Crammed together in the peak-hour crush, we watch the empty
container roll about the carriage floor at our feet. It comes to rest against
a briefcase, retreats a little as the train slows, then advances again as the
train speeds up. A middle-aged woman says, ‘Somebody should pick
that up.’ Nobody does.
At the next station, passengers shuffle off and on, carefully stepping
over the stationary bottle. An elderly man is about to tread on it when
a boy with headphones touches his arm and says too loudly, ‘Watch out,
mate.’ The chime sounds to warn that the automatic doors are about to
close.
Then I act: I bend down and in a single sweeping motion of the arm,
grip the bottleneck between my thumb and index finger and toss the
vessel out between the closing doors. I realise with dread, the bottle
leaving my control, that it is made of glass, not plastic. An instant
later it smashes to pieces on the platform. An angry ‘Oi!’ comes from
somewhere outside as the train starts to move. People around me tuttut
and scowl. I look down at my phone to hide a face inflamed with
embarrassment.
‘A man of action,’ says a voice behind me in a playful, teasing tone.
I turn.
My eyes lock with hers.
And my life without her ends at that moment.
17 18

Simon Lowe
Ear today
Simon Lowe
Connie wasn’t good with faces: she was good with ears. The curve and
swerve of a helix, the subtle bulge of a tragus, the delicate hang of a
lobule. Connie never forgot an ear. It was unfortunate, in some ways,
because it made Connie unusual; not everyone is interested in ears. On
the whole, ears are not liked.
At medical school, a boyfriend observed the Andy Warhol replica on
Connie’s wall. Rather than Marilyn Monroe’s gaudy face, it displayed
repeating ears.
‘A bit GCSE, isn’t it?’ he said.
‘And drawing a can of soup isn’t?’ Connie replied. The boyfriend had
been invited to her room because Connie wanted a cast of his ears. He
had the most incredible triangular fossa. That night, in bed, Connie
didn’t have a boyfriend or a cast but her dreams were just the same.
Connie left medical school, determined to progress the work of
nineteenth-century otic pioneer Armede Joux. She had his famous
quote tattooed across her back, from shoulder to shoulder in sliding
italics.
Show me your ear and I’ll tell you who you are, where you come from
and where you’re going.
Connie completed her PhD in external ear individuation and became
the country’s leading ear identification expert*.
Connie’s excellence in the field of ear printing and ear identification
meant she was often called to court as an expert witness. The hubbub
surrounding her techniques impressed jurors and caused irritation
amongst defence teams, who had no way of discrediting her evidence.
Connie was a lone voice; there was no one to counter or challenge her
know-how.
The government’s Terror Department had been making mistakes.
They were apprehending or, on occasion, removing the wrong people
from the streets due to multiple cases of mistaken identity. The HOT
(Head Of Terror) believed Connie’s ear specialism could provide a
handy solution. He sent her a letter along with research papers, brains
coloured blue, yellow and red, psychedelic experiments demonstrating
that the way we see a face is biologically determined. He wanted to
know if it were possible to ID a suspect from an image of their ear. If so,
there was a job for Connie in Terror, if she wanted.
Connie accepted, purely for the fun of it.
She all but eliminated Terror’s mistakes by building an ear database
called Joux. Agents in the field could access Joux and match their
suspect to the thousands of ears scanned from photographs and CCTV
images. It provided much needed assurance to these talented but
sometimes guileless government killers. Terror was, of course, extremely
grateful for Connie’s help. Especially the HOT. Funding the ear lab and
recruiting Connie was his idea, and it wasn’t cheap. He felt proud and
hoped he might be remembered, even heralded, for it.
Processing images onto Joux was all well and good, but nothing beat
the rubbery spring of a real ear. Connie liked it when agents brought a
suspect to the lab for a scan. Usually, the HOT came too. Connie gave
a running commentary.
‘This bulge here is called the knob of Darwin… I’m just going to give
Darwin’s knob a quick rub,’ she would say. The HOT always enjoyed a
Darwin’s knob gag; he enjoyed it much more than the suspects.
Once a week, Connie and the HOT met for lunch.
‘Ear she is.’
‘Very good, Sir.’
19
* The demure medical establishment continues to believe only teeth and fingerprints
can accurately identify a person. But Connie and Joux knew different. They have
proven the medical establishment wrong.
20

Ear today
Simon Lowe
‘Been ear long?’
‘Nearly an hour actually, you’re very late.’
‘Sorry, had some fires to put out… literally!’
‘That’s why you’re the HOT!’
‘Let’s be serious Con, can we?’
‘Of course Sir, yes.’
‘I’ve got some bad news.’
‘Is it the new lot?’
‘They say the ear lab isn’t an essential cost.’
‘What about Joux? There’s not been a mistake in months. Surely they
can see the value in that?’
‘They don’t know about Joux, or Terror’s mistakes. Frankly, nobody
does.’
‘Oh.’
‘Imagine the hoo-ha, Con!’
‘I suppose. So there’s nothing we can do to change their minds, Sir?’
‘All I know is, they like private solutions.’
‘Private solutions?’
‘If there was an independent lab, for instance, we could outsource
work. Plenty of funds for that. We’d be boosting the economy.’
‘Go private, you mean.’
‘Could be nice little earner.’
‘I’d be my own boss.’
‘Ears looking at you, kid.’ The HOT raised a glass.
‘Good one, Sir.’
Before opening her private clinic, Ear Today, Connie needed an
assistant. Ideally, somebody who knew their trocha from their outer
helix. She found recruiting a suitably qualified assistant difficult. Only a
handful of applicants seemed to share her enthusiasm for ears, and none
had the competency required to analyse them correctly. Candidates
arrived for interviews in a dreamy, confused state, as if they were only
playing along to humour Connie. Thankfully, Imana was different.
Despite not scoring highly on the lobule recognition test, Imana
had vigour and a genuine love of ears. In her written statement, she
reflected on being born without a posterior auricular furrow. 'Consider
amputees,' she wrote, 'consider the blind. Now consider people like me,
born without a furrow. We are together and we are alone.' It brought
tears to Connie’s eyes. Imana was hired on the spot.
A small group of protesters wearing woollen hats had begun to
congregate outside the doors of Ear Today, on the gravel path. They
carried placards querying the lab’s ethics. They shouted things like ‘Ear
Today, gone today’ and sang a slow but tuneful dirge called ‘Free to be
me, free to be free’. One of them, a man, had a twelve-string guitar.
In winter, the protesters came inside for coffee and cake. Imana gave
them a tour and even scanned a couple of their ears, free of charge. They
were nice people, passionate. Connie got on well with the protesters.
They waved at one another in the mornings. They were, in many ways,
kindred spirits.
Imana, once she had settled in and gained her confidence, insisted
Connie find a man.
‘You can’t marry lobules,’ she said. To keep Imana quiet, Connie
began dating a doctor from the Ear, Nose and Throat Hospital. They
met at an ear conference; as they were the only two attendees to most
lectures, they chatted. He said his favourite part of the ear was the crus
of helix because it sounded like a horror movie.
‘You must go for it,’ Imana told Connie. ‘No excuses, just go for it.
He’s clearly perfect.’
Connie agreed but there was a niggle that couldn’t be ignored.
Which one did he prefer? Ear, Nose or Throat? The answer was of course
obvious, but she felt compelled to hear it for herself. One evening, at
dinner, knowing the doctor was carrying a large diamond ring on his
person, she asked the all-important question.
‘Throat,’ said the doctor, without hesitation. ‘It has a unique tubular
quality all too often neglected by the medical profession.’
Connie regretted listening to Imana and vowed never to do it again.
Business was good; Ear Today saw profits grow each year. Connie’s
fee as an expert witness was enough to pay the bills alone. With Imana
maintaining Joux, Connie had very little to do. Oddly, this did not cause
21 22

Ear today
Simon Lowe
her concern. On Tuesdays and Thursdays she received guitar lessons
from one of the protesters. He was a patient teacher and Connie looked
forward to his lessons more than anything else. Even when an article on
the outer ear appeared on the front page of The Lancet, Connie forgot to
read it, more interested in mastering her bar chords.
Connie was drinking coffee and showing off her new twelve-string
guitar to her instructor when the HOT entered the lab with a suspect
in handcuffs.
‘We’ve got a live one, Con,’ said the HOT.
Connie carefully placed her guitar on a stand.
‘What do you need?’
‘The works.’
‘Should I go?’ said Connie’s instructor, a nervous witness to the
intrusion.
‘No, I’ve interrupted your lesson,’ said the HOT. ‘Stay and watch
Con work, she’s quite something.’
‘Right, well I hope you’re not waxy,’ said Con, peeling gloves over
her fingers.
‘This is called the knob of Darwin.’
‘Wait for it!’ the HOT whispered in the instructor’s ear, giving him
a fright.
‘I’m just going to give Darwin’s knob a quick pull.’
‘That’s very funny,’ said the man in cuffs, sarcastically.
‘Now now, where’s your sense of humour, Terry?’ said the HOT.
The man in cuffs was the famous eco warrior Terry Duval. Terry’s
ears did not appear in Joux because he always wore a woolly hat that
covered them. This was the first time anyone had seen Terry’s ears. They
were not unusual in any way.
The following day, Terror sent Connie a partial earprint found at the
scene of an eco crime, which they believed belonged to Terry Duval.
Connie asked Imana to run it through Joux to see if it was a match.
Connie apologised for not doing it herself but practising B minor 7 had
made her fingers hurt.
Imana returned an hour later looking confused and worried. Joux
had accurately matched the print to Terry Duval as expected, but Terry
Duval wasn’t the only match. Joux was equally convinced the print
belonged to a Kerri Dwyer as well.
Connie told Imana to sit down whilst she repeated the test. Clearly
an error had been made somewhere down the line. But when Connie
ran the test, the results came back the same. Terry and Kerri. It was a
real head-scratcher.
The consequence of Joux finding two matches was beyond troubling.
If it turned out ears weren’t one hundred per cent unique after all, that
meant every piece of evidence Connie had given in court was liable to
be discounted, her work discredited. The damage would be irreparable.
‘What are we going to do?’ asked Imana.
‘Let me think.’
‘I don’t mind lying.’
‘Lying?’
‘Or pretending… or whatever.’
‘I’d better ring the HOT.’
‘I feel sick.’
‘I’ll ring the HOT.’
‘Hi Sir ( ) Good thanks, sorry to call ( ) Yes, yes ( ) Very good sir
( ) Good one ( ) Yes, just a quickie ( ) Yes, ha ha, very good Sir. But
seriously, this Terry Duval, we’ve got a match for you ( ) Thank you Sir,
listen I just wanted to check, you’re absolutely sure he’s your man? ( )
No, no problem, and the name Kerri Dwyer, would that ring any…( )
No, me neither, just double checking ( ) Great ( ) No no, that’s great ( )
Congratulations to you. Night Sir.’
‘Joux must have made a mistake,’ said Connie.
‘Must have,’ said Imana. ‘Every ear is different, that’s a fact.’
‘Exactly. I think we can forget about Kerri Dwyer.’
‘Kerri who?’
‘Good one, Imana. Delete him from Joux, would you?’
‘With pleasure.’
‘Then we can go back to normal.’
‘For a minute I was worried. You know this is the best job I ever had?’
23 24

Ear today
‘It’s alright, everything is back to normal.’
But it wasn’t long before the HOT was back on the phone.
‘The thing is, Con, Terry Duval is pointing the finger at this Kerri
Dwyer and I couldn’t for the life of me think where I’d heard the name,
then I remembered our conversation the other night. I’m sure it’s
nothing but... do we have a problem, Con?’
There was time. Connie spent most of it fingerpicking her twelvestring
guitar, singing ‘Free to be me, free to be free’. What had ears ever
done for her anyway?
In Terry’s shed
in Tomago
he’s got
a loo,
a bucket,
a kitchenette
and a furnace,
door ajar
with
a flaming skeleton
inside.
After life
Georgina Woods
Metal limbs
and joints
survive the fire
and are tipped
into the bucket.
On a tray,
skull bits,
bone shards
and an enamel
nameplate ‘Nola.’
‘No man,
nor woman
neither.’
I thought.
Terry’s blades
wear down,
grinding
the bone
to powder.
In four days
he’ll give you
your jar of dust;
for disposal
or safe keeping.
25 26

Lucas Chance
Your daughter,
the armadillo
Lucas Chance
Let’s leave your kids in the woods. If we are very quiet and carry our
hiking boots in our hands, they won’t hear us as we walk past them. We
won’t be there to answer their calls when they wake up. Of course, we
won’t be able to celebrate your daughter’s twelfth birthday as originally
planned. It’s unfortunate, but she never appreciated it in the first place.
Instead, you and I will be heading to Boca Raton. (I always preferred
the sun and beach over the woods.) Your hairy arm will be hanging out
the passenger window, your legs spread casually across the dash and
you’ll be singing along to the radio. A perfect symbol of freedom.
Your children prevent me from loving you fully. I thought they
would be you in miniature, and that being a step-parent would be like
gardening: I get the seedling already prepped for the soil by another’s
hands, I nurture it gently, and I see it grow into something I can be proud
of. Instead, it’s more like owning a marginally successful McDonald’s
franchise, and I have overextended my spiritual finances by opening up
another location.
At home, your son destroys his toys and throws rocks at our
neighbours. His aim isn’t perfect, but it’s the intent that matters. I tried
explaining this to him, but he threw a plate at the wall. It could have
been meant for me though. If it was, his aim is worse than I originally
thought. When we had to take him out of Montessori because of those
spears he fashioned in art class, I bit my tongue and tried to turn it into
a constructive experience. When he and I were down by the pond at the
start of this trip, I laughed at his speech impediment; the next morning
I found two dead pigeons in my Crocs. If it were one pigeon, I would
have written it off as an example of the cruel laws of nature. But since it
was two of them, I suspect your son.
Your daughter has eaten nothing but spicy pork rinds for six years.
Even out here in the forest where pork rinds are not plentiful, she
constantly has a bag in her hands. She rejects the meals I cook for her,
and the closest thing to conversation with her is a maundering with
bits of BBQ-flavoured crumbs popping out of her mouth. Her biggest
crime is being boring, I guess. It’s not something she can really help, but
it amazes me that she could come from someone like you. I know she
died early and that you prefer not to talk about her, but was her mother
this way? I do not believe in a God, as you know, but I pray each night
with all the atheistic fervour I can muster that she chokes on a pork skin
and that I am there to see it. Your daughter, I mean. Your wife is already
passed. (God rest her soul.)
If you can’t see yourself leaving without a word, we can be more
direct with them. As they eat their breakfast, we’ll explain why they are
being left to fend for themselves in the wild. We’ll tell them that this
isn’t their fault, when we both know that it is. Don’t worry about crying.
I’ll be there to hold your hand and make sure your soft heart isn’t being
taken advantage of as you explain our reasoning.
If you’re worried about their safety, we can leave them with more
accommodating parents. We can take your son to the pack of coyotes
on the other side of the pond. And leave your daughter with the
arrangement of armadillos out by the highway. They’ll know what to do
with them more than we do.
The coyotes will rename your son Rrrrgrarrr, which in their language
roughly translates to ‘fitful anger’. He’ll eventually grow up and become
the alpha. He’ll find love with a she-coyote and raise a litter of halffurred
pups. It’ll be sweet in its own monstrous way. The other coyotes
won’t even notice his speech impediment. A lisp is undetectable when
baying at the moon.
Your daughter will be known as Carol, which in armadillo means
Carol. She’ll grow a carapace and be able to eat all the dirt she wants.
It has no BBQ flavouring, but she’ll soon adapt to its earthy flavour. I
pray they’ll teach her to avoid traffic and not be too entranced by the
prospect of fresh soil to notice the oncoming semis. (One can hope.)
Meanwhile, you and I will be on a beach in Boca, our bodies entwined
in the sand. I’ll look at you and be in bliss, and away from the whining
call of ‘Mother’.
27
28

I will start
my sentences
without you
Luke J Bodley
I long-look upon the taint of waking
Of the slaking of muses mythical;
Feel fast abound the steeling clatter-ring,
All tossed, a crooked-heap chimerical.
I break silence with silences many,
Widen my being to an A4 page,
Press the pen of insignificancy
And paint my paper-spine to so assuage
The things ‘saying’ says not, and not enough.
Oh limp actuator of expression,
Singing limb of chorales, ill-wrought and rough,
Please sit queer-quiet at the indention.
I will start my sentences without you,
Conceive tongueless locutions in your lieu.
Net-transference—
A wire-heap whines;
Profiles proffer no-identity,
Only pixel-paradigms.
Pulling the hair of my hair
To some virtue-virtual-virtue.
Aristotle found poetics in tragic Tors,
Where algorithms log the logistics-of-being
A non-being…
29
30

Sophie Clews
King of nothing
Sophie Clews
When Vincent Morris was four years old, glow-in-the-dark planets on
his ceiling and spaceships on his bed sheets, he dreamed that he stole
a boat from an old man on the seashore. He sailed until the horizon
swallowed up the sun, until someone dislodged the ocean’s plug. The sea
drowned him on its way down the drain, followed by the land, the sky
and the stars that had lit his path across the water.
When he woke he had wet the bed. He stuffed blankets into the
washing machine, tiptoeing until his mother caught him and spanked
him so firmly that it hurt to sit down for a week.
Twenty years later, living in a landlocked town, Vincent Morris lined
his pockets with stones and walked into a lake.
Around him, the world carried on as usual.
It took four days for anyone to notice he was missing: just a message
on his answering machine, red light blinking—his boss saying that he
needn’t bother coming into work anymore.
Two days after that, an eleven-year-old boy looking for dead fish at
the water’s edge came across Vincent’s body instead, bloated and blue
and missing some pieces that would turn up a week later in a game of
fetch with a Boston Terrier. The boy received counselling but still ended
up a delinquent; the dog got an extra can of food at dinner, but was run
over later that year.
By the time he died, Vincent Morris’s parents had divorced, following
an incident in which his mother had threatened to stab his father
with a knitting needle. They moved to opposite sides of the country,
leaving him somewhere in the middle. They would make phone calls at
Christmas and birthdays, if anyone remembered, then died within two
weeks of each other. Their families had decided to bury them without
Vincent there, calling him a month after his parents were in the ground
to tell him what had happened.
With no one to take him home, Vincent Morris was pulled from
the lakeshore and shuttled to the morgue, shuttled to the crematorium,
burnt until his body could fit into a box the size of a small teapot and
left in storage with the other uncollected dead.
One person did stop for a moment to think on Vincent Morris. She
lived two towns away, spending a few brief months of her teenage life
pining after Vincent, and had read about a dead body found on the
sandy shores of a lake nearby. He had always been a morose boy, even
back when she had braces and he had acne and her crush amounted to
nothing more than pining looks across the classroom. She considered
for a few moments that this body could be Vincent’s.
Once, she had decided to call her old flame to see what he was up
to, to see if his mood had ever lifted. She was halfway through dialling
when the phone rang in her hand, then she forgot all about Vincent as
a friend asked about her weekend plans. As it happened, she overslept
on Saturday morning, missed her friend and never spared a thought for
Vincent Morris again.
Within two days of Vincent’s body being found, the owner of the
butchers where he worked had found a replacement, who, unlike his
dead predecessor (‘Vance? Vaughn? Something like that.’), did not
remind the owner of a serial killer he’d once heard about on the radio.
Seventeen years after Vincent Morris died, the boy who replaced him
was arrested, responsible for nine bodies buried in the backyard.
Six and a half weeks after he died, some newlyweds bought Vincent’s
house on the outskirts of town. They gave the furniture to charity, threw
his personal belongings into landfill, and called in a bulldozer to knock
down the only place he had ever thought of as home.
Seven months on, the editor of the town’s newspaper, described as
31
32

King of nothing
a ‘pillar of the community’ in his obituary, drank a bottle of whiskey in
his office one Tuesday night and decided to drive home. On his way,
he swerved too late to avoid hitting a dog, running it over and driving
himself into the lake instead. The next morning, his body was found
inside the metal carcass of his car and the mayor decided to drain the
lake where Vincent Morris had drowned himself.
With the draining of the lake, it didn’t take long for the tourists
to stop coming. The local fishermen struggled to find something with
which to feed their families. Gradually, businesses began to close up.
The mayor was not re-elected. It was deemed too late to refill the lake,
so the last of the inns shut, the butchers closed, and, fourteen months
after Vincent died, the crematorium that was to be his final home shut
down its furnace.
The night before he died, Vincent Morris dreamed of stealing a
boat from an old man on the seashore, sailing the same waters he had
imagined so many years ago, drifting along the water until the horizon
swallowed the sun. He continued until someone dislodged the ocean’s
plug, he and his vessel pulled beneath the surface. The blackness that
clung to everything began to dissolve, his dinghy breaking up with it,
until he and his heart were all that remained.
He inhaled, but there was no water left to fill his lungs. Just coolness;
calmness.
Alone, his body sank further into the absence. Rowboat splinters
softened into dust, melted into blue.
When Vincent Morris breathed in again, he began to rise.
Drifting upwards to where the sunlight cut ribbons across the water,
he saw an oar slip below. Floating on his back, he let the tide pull him
in until his feet began to sink into the sand, his stolen boat lost at last.
In the morning, Vincent Morris woke, lined his pockets with stones
and walked into a lake.
Akilter
Rebecca Douglas
The last journalist signed off from BBC radio at 2.30am London time.
It was 11.30am here. Brett and I had his workmates over for Coronas
and party pies.
‘Good riddance to the filthy liars,’ said Trev, all beard and bluster.
‘Now we just need to do the pollies outta a job.’
That got a few hoorays and bottles clinking. Held in thick fingers,
tomato sauce oozed off pies held all crushed and akilter. A dollop fell
onto Trev’s yellow work boots, but he didn’t seem to notice.
We huddled round the radio. Furious shushes as Brett turned up the
volume… BBC World Service signing off this Saturday 26th of September
2020. Bip… bip… bip… bip… bip… bip. Biiiiip…
Then dead air.
We turned the dial past every station. Wall-to-wall static greeted us.
I’d thought we’d be cheering, but we all just kinda looked at each
other. I had to crack out the Viennettas to jump-start the party again.
I met Brett out on the back deck.
‘I got laid-off yesterday,’ Brett said, scratching his stubble and not
meeting my eyes.
I squinted at the magpie perched in our almond tree. There was a
whirring noise and he flew off, branch quivering.
‘Do those guys know?’
‘Nup, but they’ll be next, poor bastards.’ He flicked his cigarette into
the geraniums and glanced inside.
A drone buzzed over our heads. It dropped a brown package of books
I’d ordered online into the terracotta flowerpot. The box caught on fire.
We shuffled our shoes and watched.
33 34

They say, you live here in Kufa.
Ever have, since seventh century.
I moved into this town when I was born.
Then lived a lifetime.
Since my arrival here,
everyday I have heard your call.
आज़ान
Tombs of those dead,
lay under the zari.
This is where he lives.
This is where Noah built his ark. Said he.
I didn’t understand. Where were you?
Aazaan
आज़ान
Preetika Anand
Five times each day.
Is it a bird crying for help? I asked Abba one day.
It’s not a bird, barkhurdar, this is the voice of God. Said he.
Still, I believed you were calling out.
To me.
To save you.
Abba was convinced that you did not need my help.
I
kept hearing you.
You
kept calling me.
Seven years of Aazaan.
And then, I wanted to see you.
In his strong arms, he carried me to the mosque.
This is where he lives. Said he.
The biggest, whitest, bluest, shiniest place I had ever seen.
White, Greek marble spread out in the square courtyard.
Walled by columns standing to guard.
Gold domes that glistened over the walls like the midday sun.
Carved on every wall in bullion.
या अली
Dad, God is not here.
His cry comes from a faraway place.
His voice would have choked under these marble walls.
Let’s go.
Let’s look for him somewhere else.
A stoic silence scared me. I took that silence home.
Twenty years passed.
Abbu died in a bomb blast.
Ammi followed him to heaven.
Bhaijaan became jihadi to fight the holy war in Mehdi’s army.
Today, I ask Bhaijaan
For whom do you kill, my brother?
Have you met Allah or have you ever seen him?
I went to meet him—when I was seven, in Kufa.
He lives in luxury, imprisoned.
The Aazaan we hear,
that is a marketing promotion for him.
अब्बू, अल्लाह मीआं यहां नहीं रहते
दूर से पुकार आती है उनकी
यहां तो संगेमरमर की दीवारों में
उनकी आवाज़ घुट जायेगी
चलो कहीं और ढूंढते है उनको!
किसके लिए जिहाद करते हो, मेरे भाई?
तुम मिले हो अल्लाह से क्या, या देखा है उनको?
मैं मिलने गया था उनसे,
कूफ़ा मैं,
बहुत ऐशो आराम से रहता है वो
पिंजरे मैं
जो आज़ान आती है,
वो अल्लाह नहीं
पर िश्तियार है
मस्जिद का!
Where had I come?
Was this the deprived, torn-up, poverty-ridden, garrison-owned
city of Kufa?
Was I in heaven?
35
Diamonds and rubies splashed everywhere.
Verses of the Quran inscribed in gold Arabic calligraphy.
I do not buy that product anymore. I have stopped using God.
36

37
The lonely planet Jo Lane
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Resurrection
machine
Jay Ludowyke
‘Next.’
The queue stretched past paint-stained redbrick walls, dirty bitumen
roads and opaque glass. Past verdant meadows rife with wildflowers and
savannahs swaying in the breeze. Past deserts of cracked earth, rock and
sand. Over snowy mountain ranges and through valleys shadowed in
doubt, snaking its way around all the world’s oceans.
At one end was the resurrection machine. At the other, Aloysius.
A man of uncommon name, Aloysius was also of uncommon
appearance. He had hair that began black and became tan and ended
blond. Eyes that, in the right light, were sometimes blue and sometimes
green and often brown. He was of average height but above average
intelligence. At least a little, anyway. The most unremarkable thing
about Aloysius was his intention to use the machine.
The resurrection machine was a gift to mankind. Upon it no price
may ever be attached and no man may ever be turned away. The machine
cannot provide longevity, only life, exactly as it was.
There is one rule only: begin at the end.
This rule marks a universal experience. The initial gauge of length
of line and time invested versus the gain through perseverance; the
resignation and acceptance that reward is doled out in turn and that
this machine’s reward is the greatest of all, so no person is ever last in
line, only ever next.
Aloysius’s next was Gelway.
One had to look hard to truly see Gelway. He was tall but often
38

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Jay Ludowyke
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slouched and so seemed short. His hair was ginger—his wife had called
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Next husband. What was he to do come time?
it russet—but he kept it shorn. His acquaintance with Aloysius began
one day after an indeterminate length of silent forward-shuffling when
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Yet another man waited, to bring life back to his bank-robbing
accomplice who had stashed their dosh without telling him; a wise man
Gelway broke the companionable quiet that had long ago shifted Next
Next his partner, who had the misfortune to be absent during his high school
from polite distance to silent shared amusement at the antics of other
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Next careers day, then had the inconsideration to up and die in a shootout at
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queuers. Gelway cleared his throat and made an incongruous comment
the OK Corral. This is not a metaphor.
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for a man so young, that the ficus leaves were particularly green this Next
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Apparently, there were a great many zeroes attached to the dosh.
spring. To which Aloysius responded, ‘I see what you mean.’
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Next His next was a police officer, who occupied one of the few spaces in
An accord developed between the two men and slowly the days of
silent amusement grew into days where they could laugh again. They
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line in receipt of a special dispensation that allowed the cycling of queue
placeholders, meaning the officer changed every day.
often shared epistemological conversations, such as the one about Next
Next This changing of the guard was a daily high for those close by, which
the ficus. This led to many arguments but, fundamentally, they always
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Next included Aloysius and Gelway, providing conversational stimulus to the
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agreed on the big picture. Though when they tried to describe that big
queuers. Was today’s officer handsome? Pretty? Married or single? Who
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picture, they invariably resorted to metaphors that grew increasingly Next
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had won last night’s game?
ambiguous.
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Next Since the officers wouldn’t be using the machine, technically the one
‘It’s a letter that’s never been opened,’ said Aloysius, his eyes green
that day, as they sat on a fallen tree surrounded by bleeding hearts and
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rule remained unbroken.
One woman waited for her best friend who had died of cancer two
impatiens. ‘One that contains the most perfect words ever written.’ Next
Next hours before they discovered the cure.
‘It’s the shimmering auroras deflecting cosmic radiation,’ Gelway
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Next ‘It’s always worth the wait, they say,’ from Aloysius.
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returned, standing tall to make his point then gesturing up at the blue
‘They do,’ from Gelway.
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sky that, while absent of any auroras, seemed tremulous with potential.
Next
They spent more time forward-shuffling.
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Next ‘Looks like rain.’
Sometime later, Gelway told Aloysius of the woman for whom he stood
in line and Aloysius told Gelway of his father, for whom he stood in
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‘Yep.’
‘Looks like hail.’
line, and then they were silent for a while.
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A million such stories were whispered—and distorted—up and
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down the queue. One man stood in line for the seventeen children he
‘I see what you mean.’
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lost in a hunting accident.
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‘The rifle misfired, you see.’
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Next Very soon after it was gifted, the machine became the most popular
The youngest in line was but four, who stubbornly queued for her
dead dog, though the machine clearly had a sign that read ‘no dogs
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ride in the world. Commercial enterprise inveigled its way in and
towns sprung up along the line, with street hawkers and market stalls
allowed.’ Her mother had told her it was because God loved dogs so Next
Next and gilded wares. Roadways soon changed so that scenic routes would
much. She was adamant that she loved her dog more.
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Next pass the queue, while disciples of new religions of the machine made
Next
Another man stood in line to resurrect his dead wife, only to fall in
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pilgrimages to weigh stations along the line and tourists took photos.
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love with the redhead who was his next—there to resurrect her dead
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During a—please draw out the ‘ong’—long conversation on the
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many and varied uses of eucalypts, Gelway said, ‘I miss playing with
her hair.’
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‘Pretty hair,’ Gelway said about a passing blonde.
Because of the resurrection machine’s wooded location, closed
‘I wasn’t ready,’ Aloysius replied.
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Next in on the sides, all who had taken their turn then travelled inversely
‘She would smile as the curls twined around my fingers.’
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‘His answers were always the right ones.’
Gelway could quite understand the up-queue man’s intoxication with
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the redhead. Hair is a woman’s glory.
At one point, Aloysius managed to scrounge up some chalk; and Next
Next ‘Yes, but nobody had aureate hair like your Penny. Can’t think why
Gelway, some marbles; and they passed their sentence peaceably. Had
Gelway been able to enter, he would have for sure won the title of Grand
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I never tried to coax her from you. My daddy would have adored her.’
Aloysius shook his head as he spoke, forgetting he had never met
Master Vizier Marble Champion of the World, with Aloysius a close Next
Next Gelway’s wife.
second. This is not an exaggeration. The Grand Master Vizier Marble
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Next ‘Your daddy adored all blondes,’ Gelway returned. ‘An indiscriminate
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Champion of the World indeed challenged Gelway to a match, but
man when it came to sunrises and daffodils.’
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Guinness refused to record the winner as the match was not officially Next
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‘True,’ said Aloysius, thinking some vague thought about what truth
sanctioned.
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Next really was. He would have asked Gelway, but then a schnauzer raced
In their words, ‘the line was no place for games.’
Though, oddly enough, the facetiousness was missing when they said
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past alongside a teenage girl with purple hair streaming behind her,
running as though pursued by the Hounds.
it.
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Next Aloysius arched a brow at Gelway and they left it at that.
The truth was, silver crossed palms daily. 2:1 odds he’d deny the
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redhead. A growing prize pool for anyone who could coax the hunting
One day, Aloysius told Gelway a story that had passed down the line
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accident tale—two bob to enter.
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about a man who lived in those very woods. He had a small cottage, so
Next
There was some debate over the fairness of a single person using the Next
Next old it predated the machine. It was built of sturdy materials, with strong
machine consecutive times but, in the end, it was likened to queuing
at a supermarket checkout; whether you purchased one item or one
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foundations that went deep into the loamy soil, and was passed down
to the man from his father. The cottage was so close to the start of the
hundred, you only queued once. Of course, there was no express line for Next
Next queue that his birdsong was the sound of reunion. Only it did him no
the resurrection machine for fifteen items or less.
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Next good. This man found it particularly ironic to have been so near, and yet
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so far. For when he had call to use the resurrection machine, he travelled
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The vast forest where the queue began was a lonely, godforsaken place.
Next
a world away so he might begin at the end; all so he could return to the
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Yet it knew joy every single second, because that was how long the Next
Next beginning.
resurrection machine took. It was the machine’s unofficial global motto,
like ‘beans in a can’: ‘life in a second.’
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They were still discussing this misfortune when a smiling couple
walked past, holding hands. The autumn sunlight caught the strands of
The lonely, forsaken place officially belonged to no country, because it Next
Next soft white in her red hair, and at sight of the smile she cast the tall man
wouldn’t be fair for the resurrection machine be grounded upon a single
Next
Next beside her, Aloysius turned to Gelway and said, ‘Why couldn’t you have
Next
nation. At first, they thought an island would be the best location. That
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been a woman, man?’
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could be ceded with no border implications. But queue-wise, logistics
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Resurrection machine
Jay Ludowyke
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They had moved onto chess by the time a collection of youths flowed Next
Next the cosmos.
past, swirling around someone at their centre and creating an eddy of Next
Next When Aloysius stepped out of the machine with his father, Gelway
laughter that grew louder the further the distance between them and Next
Next was so close behind with his wife that he collided with Aloysius’s back.
Next
the resurrection machine became.
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Neither noticed that they clutched each other for balance. They looked
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That distance was no longer great. Aloysius and Gelway left off with
exactly what they were, two old friends keeping each other upright.
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their chess and, like all who went before them, once within sight of the
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Next ‘Daddy,’ Aloysius took a step towards his father.
machine they became blinkered, even to the reunions happening across Next
Next Gelway pulled his wife into his arms, tunnelling his fingers into her
the desolate landscape because, really, they were just the ordinary sights Next
Next hair. ‘I missed you so much; love you so much.’
of happy people.
Next
Next Several of the officers in position on this side—the bank robbers
Instead, Aloysius and Gelway stood side by side, as they always had, Next
Next would step through momentarily—were captivated by the luminous
Next
and gazed at the resurrection machine. They didn’t speak. They couldn’t.
Next
blonde hair of a young, star kissed woman being hugged by her
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They were hardly able to believe their turn had finally come.
grandfather, before their attention returned to the resurrection machine
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Next as the outlaws stepped through.
The resurrection machine towered above the multitude, a monolith of Next
Next The shootout began.
hope. But for every person who came to the start of the queue, the Next
Next Remarkably, Gelway was the only one to fall before it ended.
machine was never quite what they expected. In truth, it was more of Next
Next Then Aloysius saw his friend and his heart decided to stop.
a doorway than a machine. A gothic arch constructed of a white metal Next
Next Amidst the confusion and panic—for the first time in memory, the
that burned under a thin, reflective surface, twisting gently like a turned Next
queue halted and the machine stood unused—Aloysius’s father and
Next
ribbon. The substance had been christened atonium. The arch’s walls
Gelway’s wife sat together, beside their fallen, in the still heart of the
Next
thickened and converged at the base and the inner frame was shaped
Next
world.
like a flower petal.
Next
‘Oh, Gel, what were you thinking?’ she murmured. ‘How long did
Within the petal was a galaxy. A shimmering, velvety kaleidoscope Next
you wait?’
of light and dark. It looked like a gateway to the cosmos. But it was not Next
Aloysius’s father looked at his son and saw his own father, and
a star way. It was a machine, and for each one who began at the end, Next
answered her: ‘They waited a lifetime.’
they walked through, then out, with the one for whom they came. Those Next
Next Of course, the machine didn’t remain unused for long.
Next
ones weren’t called the resurrected. They were called the star kissed.
Next
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Next Sometime later, when they were ready, Gelway’s wife leaned down and
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The rule with every line, no matter how long, all things being equal and Next
whispered into her husband’s ear before Aloysius’s father helped her
Next
according, is that eventually, everyone takes their turn.
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stand. As they left the resurrection machine behind them, she looked
First Aloysius, then Gelway was next.
Next
Next back over her shoulder, laid her hand over her abdomen and gently
As it must before an event which changes the course of life, the Next
Next stroked.
moment that preceded entering the machine was fraught with hope Next
Next
and fear and heady anticipation. Aloysius’s mouth was so dry he could
Next
not swallow. Gelway’s fists were clenched so hard he carved crescents
Next
into his palms. Then all was forgotten in the wake of travelling through Next
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43
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44
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Natalea Iskra
Residential tenancy
agreement, term
ending 12 June
Natalea Iskra
6 JUNE
There is a knack to lighting this stove.
Throughout our first months here, the summer breeze would traipse
itself through the open window above the kitchen sink and linger in the
apartment with a restless kind of mirth. We’d resigned to the idea that
it simply didn’t work. So we never cooked: we ate salads, we ate out, we
bought fresh fish and sliced up sashimi and we had picnics.
We.
Over medium heat, add oil to a heavy-based frying pan and swirl to coat.
Check the temperature by dropping in a small spoonful of batter.
‘I paid the electricity bill today,’ she says, emerging from the shower.
She moves the towel over her body. Her hidden breasts now revealed.
Her torso arches slightly forward toward me, thick dark hair falling
away to show the soft line of her neck, as she wipes up the droplets
that have settled on her calves. Her message is clear. This is what you’re
relinquishing.
‘I’m making jalapeno and corn fritters,’ I reply.
She smiles.
It will end, just as it began, with boxes. With a sense of renewal
emerging from the ordinary. There will be no accusations.
If it browns and rises quickly, the temperature is just right.
7 JUNE
Her warmth and scent unfolds itself over me. I reach to her, but I am
reaching too far. She crumples because she feels this. She is supple and I
slide my hand behind her ribcage, easing down to the small of her back,
making her rise gently to me. She is here with me, and I am here with
her. And though our kiss is a well-worn path, it is leading us now to its
own extinction.
8 JUNE
Her hair has plugged the shower again. Water pools over my feet. I
watch the knot of black hair stall against the instance of the downpour,
creating a warm pond.
By the pond, last December, a toddler strayed into our picnic. I
watched her (my one, my forever) adore the party crasher as his tiny,
naked feet clambered through duck liver pâté and brie. I studied my
lover’s face—sun drenched and lit with joy. A plane overhead rumbled
through the sky, and I wondered about its trajectory. I thought about
how small the plane looked, compared with the reality of its size.
How notions such as close and distant are purely relative. Subjective.
Changeable.
I looked at her again, and she smiled openly at me—through me,
perhaps—a lifetime ahead dancing in her eyes. And then I thought
of how words like ‘we’ can engulf words like ‘I’. So it will end, just as
it began, with boxes and talk about the bond. Nothing abrupt. Time
playing to the same tune and distance earmarked.
9 JUNE
There is a knack to unlocking this door. A slight manoeuvring forward,
then push away—gentle and measured. I look around at the things that
remain unpacked. They are the things we bought together. We. They
are not memories any more than they are objects. Ours. She and I will
become estranged to this vocabulary.
‘They’ll come to clean the carpets on Friday afternoon, after the
movers have left,’ she tells me after dinner while I fumble online.
For permanent disconnection of your service, go to our disconnections page.
45
46

Residential tenancy agreement, term ending 12 June
The Yarra Yarra, last river I swam,
back when I thought it fun
to burden our ancient Honda
with polyethylene hulls.
10 JUNE
Sleep won’t quench my resting body. My body. Feels like morrow-less
bone wrapped in a taught weathered map, which her fingers have traced
time and again. Knowing the locations of my every sensation. But she
is retracted from me tonight. I want the shapes and colours and strange
narratives of dreams to smash hungrily against my mind, to rupture it
open and peel it back.
11 JUNE
The shower tiles gleam. I watch the water escape deftly down the
plughole.
12 JUNE
The tenant agrees, before giving vacant possession of the residential
premises to the landlord to leave the premises in the same condition as at the
commencement of the tenancy.
Each of our cars are loaded: hers, mine.
The familiar wants for her are harnessed to me. Thick black hair
coiling itself over my skin, forged against my sinew. I drive away and
the knots burn tighter. I drive away from the pleasure of anticipation of
their undoing.
Wild water
J Richard Wrigley
In Bellbird Park we would struggle
into neoprene wetsuits, boots and gloves,
unload the kayaks and drag them through mud.
A day’s work before we could pass beneath
the filmic suspense of two hundred
thousand fruit bats. Your disgust when I,
slathered scalp to sole with E. coli, said
I’d sooner drink urine than sip
one drop of this. The care with which
we put our lips to Boathouse cafe lattes.
The current insists. Irresistible force
brought to bear by a fall of only inches,
the boat rolls, spills the occupant,
me, among green-coiffed boulders.
To try and stand, to resist the flow,
risks an ankle caught and twisted,
or worse, a slip, head struck on stone,
to lie prone, ceding vital heat
to indifferent shallows.
The image stuck. We stopped going.
Then came the day a helicopter drummed
a little Christian lost, news of the child
searched for and found, succumbed
to a love of flowing water, mere metres
from home, his pyjama-clad form among
fallen leaves, surface scum and suspended
debris. The tree shading where he stumbled
now a shrine hung with shiny stars and suns,
nursery version of those roadside crosses,
but with fairies and a flying unicorn.
47 Averse to the wild, we scuttled our losses 48
and left unbought the things we might’ve worn.

Bernadette Eden
Solid foundations
Bernadette Eden
The house begins its daily ceremony at dawn. It rustles in anticipation of
its leading role, heavy with the responsibility of creating a new harmony.
Walls manage the temperature as best they can. The heat has invaded
the double brick and set up camp; it will only retreat in the face of a
cool southerly. He will be up soon, will He find it too hot? Or toasty, the
way He likes it? Blinds are open which aren’t helping the temperature
control. But He likes it that way. He likes to see the rays and shadows
battle it out across the off-white walls. Kitchen is the only room without
wallpaper, so the battle is not ruined by detailing .
Tap does nothing to help the patient ambience of the house. It drips
in tune to the loud ticking clock on the counter, the sink its drum. A fly
buzzes drunkenly, looking for dangerous respite in the sink. The drip is
a protest to the unwashed teapot and tea cup left in the sink overnight.
Teapot has ‘Tea for Two’ painted on the side and bristles with the
importance of its use. Teacup has ‘You’ in the same painted lettering
but does not assume the same level of self-regard. On the sideboard a
teacup with ‘Me’ sits idle and alone. Its stony grief matched only by the
unused island bench pushed to the side, no longer an island.
Window watches an expectant family of magpies sitting outside on
a thin railing. Three generations perch and warble about the lateness of
today’s routine. They are not worried, more annoyed. They have already
bathed and played in the bird bath, now they need breakfast. Empty,
Window glints back at them, warning them to be patient. Things move
a lot slower in this house than they used to.
Lounge Room mopes off to the side, offended by dust and neglect.
The light sneaking through the arch doorway does nothing to palliate
the offence. It only highlights the thick dust particles hanging heavy.
Lounge Room pines for habitation. It was once the heart of the house,
flowing with family and friends through its informal side entrance.
Now, visitors arrive through begrudging and formal Front Entrance,
bypassing Lounge Room altogether.
Cracks sneak their way mischievously down the smooth walls,
fooling no-one in their descent. They proclaim themselves laughter
lines and assume a rightful permanence. Floor says nothing in response
to Cracks’ descent, as they have receded over time, learning to soften
and support, like a troubled man with a second chance. Ceiling sneers
down at Floor, taking no liability for Cracks, who deepen between
them. Curtains ripple with annoyance.
He doesn’t care anyway, His eyesight is failing and small
misdemeanours of home are irrelevant now.
He is sitting on the edge of his bed ready to make an entrance to the
kitchen. His slippers are on and, after some struggle, so is his gown. He
rubs his thick, coarsened hands across his liver-spotted head and rests
them on his thighs. He compares his hands to the shrunken legs sitting
below. Strange how age has kept the hair loyal to his hands but stolen it
from the rest of his body.
His knees bear the weight of him as he pushes upwards to move
in a slow and steady shuffle to the bathroom. The toilet is patient
while he rouses his bladder to give him one blessed relieving piss. He
is patient too. His bladder has grown old with him and has its own
painful morning routine. He thinks of the leaking tap in the kitchen
while staring down at his own leaking tap. He isn’t sure if he can bother
to fix either of them.
His feet move sluggishly in his rubber-soled slippers. The walls in
the windowless hallway are cool to touch. He moves forward until he
is enveloped by the kitchen’s warmth. He breathes in heavily as he fills
the kettle at the tap and smiles. The furniture has trapped the scent of
her: a redolence of eucalyptus, sugar, chicken feed and homemade fabric
49
50

Solid foundations
Bernadette Eden
softener.
Click, click, click. The gas ignites and flames take on the responsibility
of boiling water. He grunts as he fishes the fly out of the sink and flicks
it into the bin without ceremony.
Bloody flies.
He rinses his cup under the leaking tap and wonders again at
the energy required to fix it. He will tie a piece of string around it
later. He spoons two teaspoons of loose tea into his teapot. The kettle
whistles softly, he turns the gas off and fills the teapot, methodical in
his movements. He puts the kettle back on the stove, puts the lid on the
teapot and carries it to the table. He shuffles back for the cup.
Sitting on the cushioned seat of a wooden chair he licks his gums
where his teeth will click and rub painfully throughout the day. For now
he sighs and sits in stillness.
walls would fall down soon if he didn’t fill the gaps.
‘The foundations are solid.’ He smiled and brewed the tea she was
singing about.
He regrets not bringing her home.
In the end he did what he wanted. He kept her safe and out of pain,
in hospital. He hadn’t realised this house needed her as much as she
needed it. He regrets not bringing her home. He wishes the scent of her
death could mix with the scent of her life.
A shadow casts across the window. He lifts his head, pours the cold
tea through a strainer and leans back feeling the comfort of the cushion
on his unpadded behind.
‘I’m sorry,’ he whispers to the house around him. The house breathes
in acceptance and the magpies warble.
He regrets not bringing her home.
Walls leans in with expectation, even Lounge Room tilts its hum of
empty silence towards the arch.
He breathes in the trapped scent of memories. He can see her, back
turned to him as she stirs at the stove, her bottom wiggling in protest.
He touches his forearm gently where she used to place her hand: to tell
him something, ask him something, laugh at something. His forearm
received a marriage worth of gentle contacts. No wonder the hair had
worn away.
‘Tea for two and two for tea, me for you and you for me,’ she would
sing to him, laughing and moving between the stove and the island
bench he’d made for her. How bloody fancy they thought they were
with an island bench.
She is wearing the blue dress. She called it her house dress and
laughed when he wanted her to wear it out. He loved the way it clung
to her in summer, sweat rolling down the furrows of her face as she
baked in front of the hot oven. He told her his eye sight was failing
and he couldn’t see the cracks she pointed to on her face any more than
he could see the cracks in the walls. She slapped him and told him the
51 52

Today white men have come to take the inside
out of our country. Search in places far deeper
than the Snake Man shaping the land long ago
Up north a patchwork map divides the land
in leases, ready for a pipeline to pump the gas
offshore. Miners are moving in to pierce
bedrock to the core, looking for a liquid fire
brighter than oil. They drill beneath our rivers
flowing underground to mine new wealth
shipped to a waiting world, hungry for more
Safe and sound
Louise Hopewell
Caring
for Country
Brenda Saunders
Pecked and scoured, the surface skin is changing
Heaped in molehills, dust spins on the wind
Machines carve the Kimberley into squared hills
the ore sliced and trucked to ports down south
Up in the Bight they move a river sideways
dredge an open cut along the stony bed
At Alice Springs the Old Men sit in the river,
Dreaming the spirit of the Sacred Caterpillar
as machines cut a road through his golden back
Roads drawn on a gouged-out plain go nowhere
once the last seam has failed and the magic spent
Scattered clans can no longer Care for Country
Without Language, the Elders have no power
over young ones following the white man’s dream
I see sorrow in our people sitting on tribal land
Wasted in spirit, they suffer a sickness inside
as mining grinds their stories away. Buried
under scabby ground, danger lies out of sight
An unseen cloud on future horizons
Edie shuffled down the driveway fumbling the buttons on her shirt.
She was late—just hadn’t been able to drag her old bones out of bed.
She could count on one hand the number of days she’d been late for her
shift in twenty-five years at the factory. Maybe she was coming down
with something.
She was so late that her best friends were no longer warming the
footpath in their usual spots. Dot always waited down the hill a bit,
Betty over the other side of the railway line, Glenys outside the post
office, and the four of them walked to work together, arms linked,
chatter and laughter swirling around them like sweet perfume. But
today, because she was late, Edie had to walk alone.
Edie’s bunions were throbbing—she felt like they were about to burst
out the sides of her shoes—so she walked even slower than normal,
aware she was getting later and later. She could imagine the dressing
down she’d get from the foreman. Perhaps she should get that operation
Betty was always rabbiting on about, the one where they sawed the
lump off the side of your foot with a hacksaw. It sounded brutal but
Betty said it’d changed her life. Must remember to ask Betty about it at
smoko, Edie thought. It’d have to be at smoko, ‘cos she was so late she’d
missed the usual morning cuppa and natter.
The boom gates came down just as Edie got to the crossing. She was
stuck there for ages, waiting for two trains, first a city-bound, and then
a Frankston-bound, but she didn’t mind. She hummed along to the
dinging of the crossing bells, tapping her foot in time. The city-bound
53
54

Safe and sound
train clattered past, gathering speed as it swooped out of the station.
Edie smiled and held her hand up in a half wave, half salute. A train full
of people all on their way to work, just like her. Edie couldn’t understand
people like her John who moaned and groaned about having to go to
work. Didn’t they know how lucky they were to have a job?
At last the boom gate slid up and Edie trudged on. She crossed
the road down near the highway, stopping at the curb and looking
to the right and looking to the left, just like that song she sang with
her grandkids, the one from the telly. The road was clear of traffic so
she started walking right across, not running, but suddenly there was
a fellow in a blue Commodore tooting and hollering. Did she know
him? Edie stopped on the white line in the middle of the road so she
could get a good look at the driver. She couldn’t see his face clearly
through the tinted windows, so she waved anyway as his car roared off,
disappearing over the hump of the railway tracks.
The factory seemed to get further and further from home each
day and by the time she got there, Edie was pooped. Puffing, she made
her way down the side lane and around the back to the yellow door
with 'staff' written above in sloping letters. Staff. That was her. She
always puffed up her chest a little as she walked through that door. She
was staff, important enough to have her own door, even if the S had
mostly worn away, so the sign now said 'taff'.
But there was something wrong with the door; the handle wouldn’t
budge. Edie jiggled it a few times but it was well and truly stuck. She
really was late—they must’ve locked up already thinking she wasn’t
coming. She banged on the door, waited, and then banged again. No
response. The machines would’ve started up by now, so they wouldn’t
be able to hear her. Those little boxes would be whizzing down the
conveyer belt. And poor Dot—Glenys and Betty would be packing
extra fast to keep up without her. Not to worry, she’d be with them in
a jiffy, her hands moving at twice the speed of everyone else’s, shoving
little boxes into a big box—twenty-four littlies into one biggie—her
hands blurs of motion as they made up for lost time.
The front entrance was for management and special guests and Edie
had never used it in all her years at the factory. She pushed open the
Louise Hopewell
glass door and stepped inside, blinking. The factory floor was dim and
grey and gritty, but the reception area was all bouncing light and polar
white. It even smelt different. The air in the factory was thick with soot,
but this room smelt as fresh and clean as a forest. Edie glanced around.
Was there a tree in here somewhere?
There was a girl behind the desk, cradling a telephone in the crook
of her neck. She had a head of bouncy curls and wore lipstick the colour
of fairy floss. Usually Cassie was at reception. Poor thing must be crook,
or maybe the lucky ducky was on holidays. Edie didn’t recognise the
girl nodding into the phone. She was a lot younger than Cassie—looked
like she should be at school rather than manning Cassie’s post.
‘Hello Edie.’ The girl put the phone down and those candy-coloured
lips curled into a smile. Oh, they must have met before. There’d been so
many newbies starting at the factory lately, it was hard to keep track.
‘The back door was locked.’
‘Oh, Edie, I’ve told you before, the new entrance is around the other
side.’ Curls danced around the girl’s face. ‘There’s a new roller door.’
‘Oh?’ said Edie. ‘A roller door.’
‘Now you take a seat and I’ll get someone to come and help you.’ The
girl nodded towards a row of chairs by the window.
‘No time for sittin’. I’m late. I’ll just go through and get to work.’
The girl laughed, more of a giggle really, and stepped out from behind
the desk. ‘The boss said he really wants to chat to you. He told me to
get you to wait here…’ The girl took Edie’s arm and guided her towards
the chairs. The boss? What could he want to speak to her about? Maybe
she was going to get an award. Fastest packer or most valued employee
or something.
Edie slid into the chair. Oh, it was good to be off her feet. Those
bunions were burning like they’d been dipped in fire.
‘I’ll let the boss know you’re here.’ The girl trotted back to her desk
on heels so high she couldn’t walk in a straight line. She zigzagged back
and forth, leaving a choppy wake in the carpet. Better warn her about
bunions, thought Edie. She kicked off her shoes and felt the instant
relief of cool air on her toes.
The girl whispered into the telephone for a bit, then called across to
55 56

Safe and sound
Edie, ‘Won’t be long. You just sit tight.’
A little while later the girl tottered back over with a glass of water
in one hand and a tissue in the other. ‘Here you go. A nice cool drink.’
Water sloshed over the sides, dripping down onto Edie’s slacks—
her good slacks. Her hands weren’t so steady these days, but she could
still pack as fast as the other workers, faster than most in fact. That was
why she was going to get an award.
‘Oh, Edie, you’ve got a spot of lipstick on your nose. Can I get it for
you?’
Edie’s eyes went cross-eyed, searching for the end of her nose. ‘Me
hands shake so much nowadays… it’s hard with the lippy.’
The girl dabbed at Edie’s nose with a tissue. ‘There you go.’ She
rumpled the tissue and shoved it down the front of her shirt. ‘Now I’ve
got to do some work, so you just sit here nice and quiet and wait for
the boss.’
Edie nodded.
It was so lovely sitting there with her shoes off and the sun streaming
through the window, Edie closed her eyes. She must’ve drifted off
because the next thing she knew someone was calling her name.
When she opened her eyes there was a woman coming towards her.
The woman wore a blue uniform, like a copper, but looked like Edie’s
daughter. Wasn’t Jane a teacher? Maybe she’d changed jobs.
‘Jane?’ said Edie.
‘I’m Constable Smyth.’ The cop’s lips wavered into a smile. ‘You
remember me, don’t you, Edie?’ Edie pushed her neck forward to get a
closer look at the woman, this woman who looked like Jane, but wasn’t
Jane because Jane was a teacher and this woman was a policewoman.
‘Come on Edie, I’ll take you home.’ She held out her hand.
‘But I have to work. Me shift’s already started. I’m late.’
‘Not today, Edie. You don’t have to work today.’ The cop helped Edie
to her feet. ‘We’ll get you home safe and sound.’
When the cop car pulled up, John was pruning the rose bush out the
front. The car did a U-ey, coming to a stop with one wheel up on the
gutter. Where was Edie? He’d thought she was out the back sunbaking,
Louise Hopewell
but maybe she’d snuck out when he’d gone in for a leak. She must have,
because there she was climbing out of the police car, dressed for going
out in her blue slacks and best shirt, although she had slippers on her
feet, pink with black pompoms.
A policewoman got out of the car too, walking around to help
Edie negotiate the slope of the driveway. John recognised the copper.
Fortunately it was the nice one, Smyth, not that other bitch—the one
who’d gone on and on about how it’d reached crisis point and Edie really
needed to be put in an institution or at least on some pretty serious
medication. This Smyth woman was all smiles and understanding. Said
she’d been through something similar with her gran.
‘Hi, Constable.’ John raised his hand in a wave but lowered it again
quickly when he realised he was still holding his secateurs, the blades
glinting in the sun. He tucked his hand behind his back and let the
secateurs fall to the ground. They stuck up vertical in the lawn, blade
half buried.
‘Been out again, Edie?’
‘Been to work.’ The cop’s smile was stiff.
‘I thought she was round the back.’ John smiled broadly, then,
remembering he hadn’t put his teeth in (after all he hadn’t been
expecting guests), pulled his lips back together. ‘Sorry, I’ve been tryin’ ta
keep a closer eye on her… Since last time.’
‘Well she’s home now.’ The cop tapped Edie’s forearm. ‘Safe and
sound.’
John looped his arm through Edie’s. ‘Come on, we’ll have a nice cup
of tea.’
As they hobbled towards the house, John turned back to the cop.
‘Thanks, it won’t happen again.’
Edie swivelled around too. ‘Thanks Jane.’
‘That’s not Jane,’ John sighed. ‘Jane’s a teacher, well was a teacher
but she’s retired now… You’ve retired too, ya know. A long time ago.
You don’t have ta go ta work. You can stay home and put ya feet up.’
John held the front door open and Edie chugged inside, the pompoms
on her slippers swinging. ‘Wasn’t that nice of Jane to come pick me up
from work,’ she said.
57 58

Jo Pugh
Miranda
Jo Pugh
Content warning: the following contains a case of sexual assault.
Author note: the character Sloane takes gender-neutral pronouns (they/them).
Miranda kissed his cheek. ‘Hope to see you soon.’
She really didn’t.
She threw the linen into piles in the laundry. Not many of
the women were still there; the sofas, cluttered earlier with drink
bottles, journals, makeup and dressing gowns, had on them only
the rolled-up plush pink blankets ready for tomorrow's workers.
She took off her wig, relieved her feet of pleasers. Keen to get
out of there, she packed her bag, carefully placing her Miranda
wig on the top so as not to tangle it while transporting it home.
Sloan, now dressed in their usual attire—sneakers, a baggy t-shirt and
a windbreaker—made their way out towards reception. Even this late,
around midnight, Sloan was conscious of new clients walking in from
the night or other workers’ clients coming down the stairs to leave.
They watched the TV screen in the workers’ lounge, which scanned the
entrances and halls of the brothel. Their cropped hair was on display
now, an easily identifiable trait that Sloan carried with them in their
outside-of-the-brothel life. They were ready to swiftly disappear into
the hood of their jacket if someone did appear.
Sloan’s phone beeped. Their Uber was a minute away. As they rushed
past reception, Mel smiled warmly. Another eight-hour shift done.
Sloan stepped through automatic doors, into the brisk outside air. They
walked quickly to the address they’d put into Uber, a block from the
brothel.
In the darkness, headlights crept towards Sloan. They climbed into
the back, behind the driver’s seat.
‘Sloan, yeah?’ the driver asked to confirm.
‘Yeah.’ Sloan took out their phone.
‘What’ve you been up to tonight?’
‘Oh, just been at my friend’s place.’
‘Yeah, picked up a few people from a party around the corner earlier,
hey.’
Sloan could feel his gaze. He was looking at them in the rear-view
mirror.
‘I drop a lotta men around here, actually,’ he said. ‘They go to the sex
joints.’
Sloan kept looking at their phone, not interested in making
conversation.
‘I’ve never really picked up any chicks,’ the driver continued. ‘Not
like you. I pick up whores and stuff.’
‘Yeah, interesting.’ Sloan looked up briefly. His eyes found theirs.
Neither spoke for a moment.
‘You actually look really familiar. Have I seen ya around?’
Sloan stopped scanning through emails, feeling hot. They took notice
of his hands on the steering wheel, veiny and hairy; his lips, darkened
from the cigarettes they assumed he’d smoked. Had they stayed with
him before? Sloan couldn’t remember. After a few months of working,
clients were just clients—nothing stood out unless it was an exceptional
or a shit experience.
The driver took a turn into a street that normally Sloan wouldn’t go
down. But they didn’t say anything. Now looking out of the window,
Sloan pretended to be unfazed.
He started to talk again. ‘You’re a real pretty one. Why’s your hair so
short though, eh?’
It was a question Sloan was used to. It was one of the reasons when
Sloan started working at the brothel that they decided to work in a wig,
too.
59
60

Miranda
Jo Pugh
‘Is that why you have the wig?’ In the rear-view mirror, he gestured
with his eyes to where Sloan’s bag was tucked behind the centre console.
Blonde hair stuck out from the top of their bag. Sloan grabbed the
strap of their satchel to conceal the wig. His eyes hadn’t moved.
The driver reached back and touched Sloan’s leg. He slowed down
and pulled to a stop at the kerb.
‘Ah, my place is just a bit further up...’ Sloan’s voice trailed off.
He fiddled on his phone on the dashboard. ‘I just figured, maybe
if I stopped here, ya know, we could work out a lil’ arrangement?’ He
reached to the back seat again, his eyes still fixed on Sloan in the rearview
mirror.
Sloan moved their leg away. ‘Please, I just wanna go home.’
‘Why’s a girl like you going home alone? You got a boyfriend?’
Sloan watched him. He scanned them all over, pausing at their chest.
‘He must be a real lucky guy, getting to suck those titties whenever
he wants.’
‘Hey, you actually don’t know anything about me,’ Sloan said.
Their mind darted. Their phone had died not long ago. They needed
to get out, but didn’t want to aggravate the situation.
‘So how much would you charge for a BJ? I’ve ended the trip,’ he
said, referring to his Uber app.
‘You’re a pig, mate.’ Sloan spoke in a raised voiced now.
‘C’mon, you’ve had sex with strangers so many times. I know you
weren’t at that party tonight.’
The titties. Sloan’s memory rewound to a few weeks ago. He’d booked
Miranda. Although the booking was a blur without the trigger, Sloan
remembered that line: ‘Getting to suck those titties whenever he wants.’
It was a classic scenario, Sloan had thought at the time. A judgement
about their sexuality, gender and having a partner.
‘I recognise that rose.’
The tattoo of a thorned rose protruded from Sloan’s jacket sleeve.
This time, Sloan used more force to push his hand off their knee,
pinching him as they did.
‘You fucking slut.’ He sucked his hand where the mark from their
long fingernails had sunk in.
Sloan flung the car door open and bolted in the opposite direction
to home. When they got to the side street, Sloan looked back. They
noticed nothing but Miranda’s wig, strewn on the road behind the car.
The synthetic strands were red from the brake lights of his parked car.
Fuck it, they thought.
61 62

A request
for violence
Kiara Lindsay
I want the dusk to show me
destruction. its best efforts
are concrete yards and ghost
faces in empty cars. by the
fluorescent flowers I beg for
blood but receive stale image.
the elderly retreat to their
fence lines to witness the
clouds sweep up like hair on
a kitchen floor. I pass a man
with a drowned face and clear
eyes. he offers a thumbs up
and confusion. I take them
though they are unneccesary
gifts and there’s already
recycling in the rubbish bin. I
beg for blood again but
receive nothing. desperation
asks me to pull myself
underneath the footpath but
it’s too well made and my gut
is determined to stay at the
whim of gravity. relenting
never worked for anyone but I
still give in
63 Flora tears Juxi Bonn 64

Afterword
From the team
The team
And so, you have reached the end of The End. We hope you enjoyed
the read as much as we enjoyed putting it together for you. We put
our blood, sweat, tears (thankfully, you won’t see any on the pages) and
unpaid hours into this anthology and we couldn’t be prouder of the
outcome.
How do we even begin to reflect on the process of piecing together
the paperback you hold before you? The road to publication was driven
by passion. Visible Ink’s 29 th edition is filled not only with some of the
best creative works of 2017, but also with some of our best memories
of 2017. We are so thankful to have had such a committed, enthusiastic
and ambitious team this year. Visible Ink is, and always will be, produced
by friendships forged by love for literature. We hope this love permeates
the pages.
We are proud to have reached a record number of submissions this
year. We loved reading and viewing everyone’s interpretations of ‘the
end’ and are thankful to all who allowed us to see their work. Deciding
on the final pieces to publish was a tough process, but we are very
pleased to feature such a diverse and innovative range of art in this year’s
collection. We are grateful to have collaborated with the incredibly
talented minds of our contributing artists and writers.
After all this talk of endings, we thought it important to take a
moment to acknowledge beginnings. With the purchase of this book
you have started the ball rolling on next year’s edition of Visible Ink.
Your contribution will go towards paying contributors and covering
design and production costs for the publication in its 30 th year. For that
we are incredibly thankful to you, dear reader.
It is the beating hearts of our readers that keep Visible Ink alive: with
you, the end is real only in fiction.
EDITOR IN CHIEF
Naomi Johnson
SUBMISSIONS
Kay Stavrou
TREASURER
Andrew Giddings
EVENTS
Aleksandra Stapmanns
GRANTS
Rebecca Nosiara
DESIGN
Tahlia Jimenez
PUBLICITY
Arty Owens
MARKETING
Bree E Chapman
EDITORIAL
Rebecca Blakeney
Jack Callil
Mikayla Carmody
Carol Goudie
Kate Hutcheson
Kirrily Ireland
Candas Kirk
Thom Mitchell
Sophie Rasic
COMMITTEE
Tessa Christie
Patrick Dobson
Jason Low
65 66

Contributors
PREETIKA ANAND is an Indian legal alien residing in US,
studying writing at the University of California, Berkeley. She is an
instructional designer by profession and views poetry as a way to
understand life.
LUKE J BODLEY is a writer and artist from Sydney. Once a
pubescent Christian doctrinaire, he is now a gay, philosophy-loving
brown-boy. His work resides at the intersection of poetics, the internet
and art-world iconography. His mixed Mauritian-Australian heritage
and queerness informs an interest in psychic and physical disjunction.
JUXI BONN is located in Melbourne, and has always been. She is
a student of English literature, and often incorporates flora into both
her visual and linguistic creations. She enjoys making her own dyes,
paints, and paper from earth, flowers and trees.
LUCAS CHANCE was born and raised in Georgia and is
currently teaching English at a boarding school in Taiwan. He is
slowly starting to notice the differences between the two.
SOPHIE CLEWS is a writer, a reader, and a teacher-to-be.
She has worked as an editor, a social media strategist, a copywriter,
and, most recently, as a bookseller. Her fiction has been previously
published in LitLinks.
SIMONE CORLETTO is an Adelaide-based YA and sciencefiction
writer. She has performed her work numerous times for
Speakeasy and at the National Young Writers Festival. Her first coedited
anthology, Crush, was published by MidnightSun Publishing
this year. She spends her spare time crocheting lumpy hats, writing
about teenage superheroes, and telling people about her science degree.
Her twitter is @simcorwrites.
REBECCA DOUGLAS is an award-winning writer and reviewer
whose work has been published by Overland, Tincture Journal, The
Sydney Morning Herald, The Big Issue, ABC, and SBS, among others.
BERNADETTE EDEN lives in the Adelaide Hills with her
husband and three children. Recently made redundant, Bernadette
writes short stories in between job hunting and cleaning the house.
Other passions include helping people make small lifestyle changes to
lessen their impact on the environment, you can read more at
www.alittlechange.com.au.
MATTHEW GEORGE is an emerging writer of flash and short
fiction based in Victoria. He is also a city boy trying to be a country
boy. He writes in the early morning and late in the night and has
enjoyed what modest amount of emerging he has achieved thus far
and plans on doing as much more of that as they'll let him.
PAUL HEPPELL is a Sydney-based father of three very energetic
boys.
LOUISE HOPEWELL is a Melbourne-based writer, poet and
songwriter. Louise suffers from itchy feet and has lived and worked
in Thailand, Japan and a remote community in Central Australia.
Back in Melbourne, Louise teaches creativity and leads community
laughter groups. In her serious, grown-up life, Louise works in public
policy. Louise’s short fiction has been widely published, including in
Headland, Seizure, Non-Binary Review and EastLit.
67 68

NATALEA ISKRA is the second daughter of immigrants from
Slovenia, and has carved a career writing content for both the
commercial and nonprofit sectors. All the while she has been working
quietly and unseen on a range of short stories, poems and manuscripts,
much of which explores themes concerning endings and beginnings.
JO LANE is a drawer. She says: 'I never tire of the immediacy and
honesty of the drawn line, no matter what it is drawn with.' She has
completed a Diploma and a Graduate Certificate in Visual Art and in
2017/18 she is undertaking her Masters of Drawing at University of
the Arts, London.
SIMON LOWE is the author of one novel, Friday Morning with
Sun Saluki, and occasionally contributes to The Guardian, writing on
book related matters. He can be found at
https://www.theguardian.com/profile/simon-lowe.
KIARA LINDSAY is a poet hailing from New South Wales,
living in Coburg. She is a screenwriting student at the University of
Melbourne and editor at Inhabit Zine. She likes to write about bodies
of water and flesh.
JAY LUDOWYKE teaches creative writing at the University of the
Sunshine Coast, where she is also a Doctor of Creative Arts candidate.
She is the recipient of an Australian Postgraduate Award and her
research focuses on creative nonfiction about historical artefacts. Her
recent publications include works in Meniscus and TEXT.
BRENDA SAUNDERS is an artist and writer of Wiradjuri and
British descent. She began writing poetry in 2001 because she has
a lot to say about the Aboriginal experience. Brenda has published
three poetry books, and in 2014 she won the Scanlon Prize for her
collection Looking for Bullin Bullin.
TANYA VAVILOVA works with university students from all
walks of life as a case manager and program coordinator. She writes
about obsession, identity and intimacy—and things that embarrass
her or keep her up at night.
J RICHARD WRIGLEY is a British-born poet who lives
and writes surrounded by the startling magnificence of river red
gums on the burgeoning outer northern edge of Melbourne. Two
of his poems have appeared in The Weekend Australian, and others
in sundry Australasian publications. His first collection of poetry,
Honeycomb & Diamonds, was recently published by Ginninderra
Press.
GEORGINA WOODS is an activist and poet living on
Awabakal land, in Newcastle. She has a PhD in English literature
and spends most of her time helping people grapple with the
impacts of coal and gas mining.
JO PUGH is a Fiji-Indian Australian writer and public
speaker living and working on Wurundjeri land. They are currently
undertaking Professional Writing and Editing at RMIT.
69 70

Acknowledgements
Visible Ink extend our deepest gratitude to the staff and teachers of
RMIT University’s Associate Degree in Professional Writing and
Editing. We credit the polished grammar, spelling and punctuation in
this book to you. We are particularly thankful to Stephanie Holt for
her guidance and for allowing us to pick her incredible editorial brain
with queries that escaped our student experiences. We would also like
to thank Penny Johnson for her guidance and assistance, keeping us on
track when faced with unexpected forks in the path to production. A
special thanks to the incredibly talented Dr Ania Walwicz who provided
our wonderful foreword and performed pro bono at our events.
Thank you to The Lincoln Hotel for hosting our fortnightly meetings,
letting us take up your largest table to bother you with our banter; you
were Visible Ink’s makeshift office. Thank you to The Queensberry Hotel
for being a spectacularly accommodating venue to hold our poetry
readings. Thank you to The Moldy Fig for being equally accommodating
for our trivia nights.
Big thanks to PWE’s Towards Publication class volunteers who assisted
with edits and proofreads: Isabel Baranowski, Dannielle Baulch, Claire
Kelley, Kate Myers, Logan Ramsay, Kelsie Rimmer and Karina Smith.
And to our Hindi and Urdu proofreader, Anit Mishra. You are all living
‘proofs’ that many hands make light work.
The production of this book would not have been possible without the
funds to cover it. So, a huge thanks to all who attended our fundraising
events, submitted to our anthology, purchased copies of previous years’
anthologies, and to all of our generous GoFundMe supporters:
Bonzo Gonzales, Neville Longbottom, Banjo Paddocks, Spicy Elmo, Carole
Callil, Penny Johnson, Carol Goudie, Grilled-Cheez Deez, Nicola Amy,
Ken Bonks, Jessie Layman, Harriet Wallace-Mead, Maisie Watson, Ann
Giddings, Prem Saraswati, Eliza Lambert, Jillian Langhammer, Rowena
Harding-Smith, Michael Nosiara, Bernadette Eden, and Brenno.
There is another person whom we cannot thank enough. You will not
find his name in the place it belongs in this book. This person is Jack
Callil, who took up the role of project manager at the beginning of
this project, but unfortunately had to step down due to unexpected
circumstances. Without Jack’s work this issue would not be anywhere
near as great as it is. Jack, in our hearts you will always be our project
manager.
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Previous
editions
2016 • Breach
2015 • Petrichor
2014 • Encounters
2013 • On The Ledge of the World
2012 • The Screen Door Snaps
2011 • Flesky Husks and Brittle Bones
2010 • Untitled
2009 • Lost and Found
2008 • 1908
2007 • 29 ... Escapades
2006 • Tattle Tales
2005 • Contemporary Soul
2004 • Stitch This!
2003 • Soundtrack
2002 • Passage
2001 • Undone
2000 • Shift
1999 • Alchemy
1998 • Launched
1997 • The Words Have Eyes
1996 • Feel
1995 • Flesh
1994 • An Anthology of New Writing
1993 • The Front
1992 • An Anthology of Writing
1991 • 1991
1990 • A Book of Short Stories and Poetry
1989 • Contemporary Soul
1988 • Out House – An Athology
About us
Visible Ink is an annual anthology promoting emerging Australian
writers and artists. Produced and published by a collective of RMIT
students, Visible Ink was established in 1989 by the Professional Writing
and Editing program and now encompasses a broad range of talented
students who are committed to curating Australia’s creative best.
Clover Press
Clover Press produces work from the RMIT Associate Degree in
Professional Writing and Editing. The clover, a humble, charming,
resilient little plant, spreads far and nourishes many. Its distinctive
three-lobed leaves perfectly capture the strength of this program,
integrating the three areas of writing, editing and publishing. The
name is also inspired by Arthur Clover, a recently retired, longstanding
teacher who had two influential mantras: Always put students first, and
always, always drink it while it's fizzy!
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