Storm Howard
James Llewellyn
Picnic
Matt Richardson
Avery Ballantyne
Sophie Tyers
the love that never existed
Mirrors
The swine team would like to acknowledge the Wurundjeri People of the Kulin Nation, the traditional owners of the land on which the SSU offices are located and our staff live and work. We extend this respect to Elders past, present and future, and to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Swinburne students, faculty and alumni.
As creators, writers, and artists of all types, we feel it is vital to acknowledge the deep connection to land, sea and community held by the Traditional Custodians.
As we may draw inspiration from and explore our connection to so-called Australia, we recognise
First Nations peoples as the original storytellers, whose knowledge and wisdom has been, and continues to be, passed through generations since time immemorial. We also recognise the continued attempted destruction of this cultural practice through British colonisation.
Sovereignty was never ceded, always was and always will be Aboriginal land. …
If you’re looking for further ways to take action, check out indigenousx.com.au for articles and resources, and consider paying the rent at paytherent.net.au.
Indigenous Student Advisers are available to meet at Hawthorn, Wantirna or Croydon campus by appointment during office hours on Monday to Friday. You can also email and schedule a call-back at a time that suits you. To contact the Indigenous Student Adviser, email indigenousstudents@swinburne. edu.au or leave a voicemail on +61 3 9214 8481.
The Indigenous Student Services team provides academic skills support for Indigenous students enrolled in higher education and vocational education.
All Indigenous students enrolled at Swinburne (including Swinburne Online) are encouraged to apply for the Indigenous Academic Success Program.
Eligible students receive two hours of tuition per unit of study per week from qualified tutors to assist with their studies. Additional tuition for exam preparation is also provided. The availability of tuition is based on funding and need. The program is provided free to eligible students.
There are also a range of scholarships available as well as an Indigenous Student Lounge at the Hawthorn campus which provides a quiet and culturally safe environment. To find out how to apply for scholarships or gain access to the Indigenous student lounge, visit the ‘Indigenous Student Services’ page on the Swinburne website or email indigenousstudents@swinburne. edu.au or leave a voicemail on +61 3 9214 8481.
Editor-in-Chief
Zara Kernan
print@ssu.org.au
Zara is a tea enthusiast, Twilight apologist and book lover. She’s in her final year of studying a Bachelor of Media and Communication with a major in Professional Writing and Editing, and has been a sub-editor of swine since 2022. When she’s not writing stories, reading or working (as a copywriter) she can be found relaxing with some yoga. She’s looking forward to editing all your wonderful work this year!
Head Designer
Sophie Robertson
designer@ssu.org.au
Sophie (she/her) is a designer by day and still a designer by night. She also happens to be the current designer of swine magazine. She is currently undertaking a Bachelor of Communication Design (Honours). You’ll find her trying to justify buying a too-expensivebut-oh-so-pretty design book, or getting an equally expensive candle. Sophie gravitates towards storytelling that emotionally strikes her in the heart.
Submissions Editor Matt Richardson
print@ssu.org.au
Matt Richardson (he/they) is a queer fiction author and editor based in Naarm, whose stories experiment with points of view and the intricacies of queer characters. They are an editor with Meridian Australis, Swine Magazine and Other Terrain Literary Journal. His previous works can be found in Apparition Literary Magazine, TL;DR Press charity anthologies and Swine Magazine. Updates on their work can be found on Instagram @ apollopic_s
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Eric Lee Events and Marketing Coordinator Media@ssu.org.au
Stay tuned Instagram @swinemag Facebook @swinemag Website swinemagazine.org
If you’d like to contribute to future issues or have your work published on our website, check out: swinemagazine.org/contribute or reach out to: print@ssu.org.au
Interested in sub-editing or sub-designing? You can always join throughout the year. Email your application to print@ssu.org.au
Edward Roebuck-Jones*
Tamar Peterson*
Dilini Fredrick*
Harley Dark*
*Requested to not display a photo.
Dear reader,
Second semester has snuck up on us and with it comes study sessions turned into gossip exchanges, assignment deadlines forgotten for social lives and students populating campus once again—but maybe I’m just romanticising uni life in my final semester. Which is actually perfectly on theme for our third issue of 2024: flirt.
Flirt contains heart-racing tales of bullfighters, heart-breaking poetry of first love, and just about everything in between. It’s been a joy to see different interpretations of the theme arrive in our inbox from talented Swinburne students and alumni across the globe (Spain and England just to name a few). It’s lovely to see how the magazine keeps us all connected.
Something else particularly exciting about this issue is that it’s jampacked with student visual art as well as prose, with three illustrations and a comic to be found inside.
As you’ll see by the plentiful contents list, this issue we received a huge volume of entries, so special thank you to our submissions editor Matt for managing these, to our sub-editors for perfecting them and to Sophie for bringing them to life visually. swine is made possible by our team, our contributors and not least of all: you, the reader.
So read on and fall in love with swine’s latest issue (or at least flirt with the idea).
Editor-in-Chief
I'm flirting with an idea, playing out scenarios in my mind. Teases of daring promise, tempting with what I may find. It calls for action, offering thrill and reward. I consider it through, is it one I can afford?
Tossing between options, unsure of their weight. A new path in life, or a worse off fate. My answer, I don't know, but my desire I do. I flirt with the idea of living life anew.
James Llewellyn
It was late enough to act like it wasn’t a problem when I sat at the bar. Winter air blew through the door that opened into the laneway. He entered on the cusp of happy hour, and I saw him completely. Before sitting down, he passed one of those windows you could mistake for a mirror if your focus was softened. Wedding white shirt. Hardshell violin case cast over his shoulder with the assurance it would be just fine. He dropped it at the foot of the barstool and let the sole of his shoe hover just above it like it counted for security. He was clean, with broad shoulders and a neat beard.
My rally hadn’t lent up with the bartender, so our stream of small talk filled the bar as much as the music leaking from the speakers. I kept on talking, knowing I could be heard. Me, with condensation dribbling down my house lager, with my stubbled face, with my white t-shirt still bearing the wear of the morning shift. We didn’t speak but I remembered it, so it counts as the first time.
We didn’t eclipse until later. The same scene played out the next week. With enough time for fantasy to percolate, I ached for intrusion. He sat beside me at the bar this time. His violin case knocked my foot. We exchanged a small look of recognition, and I stopped talking to pass the custody of the conversation. With his order placed in front of him, David—whose name I now knew—leapt into dialogue, providing snippets of perspective on the winter, contemporary sport, and what they’re doing up the street.
‘Yeah, I have to pass that on the way to rehearsal.’ He nodded in a warm, rich voice.
David had a lot of opinions, in the way someone has a lot of clothes—you’re only going to see them if the right thing comes up. He swirled his hand around his straw. He was caught in constant motion like his fingers longed for his instrument whenever they were separated. I kept looking into him, formulating these tableaus of where he’d come from, how he’d had to have been raised. He held himself well like he was someone important. I was starting to believe it. I felt so different to him, so I wanted to know and know and know all about him.
I was deep into my second pint when he asked: ‘What do you do?’
I quickly told him about the market, the rush of peddling produce, of weighing meat fast enough to forget what flesh feels like. Yada yada.
‘Oh, is that what you want to be doing?’ He leant back.
I sat up straight, trying to get our eyes to line up. I told him I was taking a break from my studies and fit my dreams into a sweet sentence. He leant forward and looked into me. When he left with a glance at his watch, a more than polite, ‘see you later’ and a coy smile, I believed it, or in something.
My job required early mornings, clear eyes and a sharp head. All of which I was willing to give up very, very easily. While grabbing a coffee after work, I crossed paths with a former classmate, Cameron. In the cafe, he spoke politely, with peaks and troughs of a huge smile. Cameron was lucky because he’d nabbed one of the rare jobs available to philosophy graduates, which meant I had to listen to how he was really feeling at home in the faculty of our alma mater. His tote bag kept slipping off his shoulder and he’d wrapped his fingers around it like a braid to hold it in place. He'd kind of annoyed me when we were studying together but it was nice to see someone succeed. I accepted his invitation to drinks that evening.
With Cameron, I recalled the general themes of our easy friendship. We moved from his living room to a nearby bar, talking along the way in large swaths of dialogue as two solo acts forced to share the bill. As he walked his blond hair bounced. His housemate joined us, and she had the same hair, like two dogs from the same litter, which either everyone had mentioned, or no one had so it came across as rude either way. It was with them that I found myself sweat-slicked and lost in the bathroom of a nightclub, jumbled in together to share a plastic dream.
‘Something wrong?’ Cameron spoke with his shoulders, which were sort of small. I shook my head and wet my nose. The door locked loose where the wood splintered.
With pounding hearts and wider eyes, we stepped back into the scene, feeling like concrete in a mixer, moving through something bigger than we felt. My breath was heavy, weighing me down as the light leapt around me, each beat from the speaker coming into existence like I’d hit the right button on the controller. I stood, swaying but comfortable in the
space between the echoes, caught beneath the blue.
I saw David in the haze. He looked tall and strong. His linen shirt fell perfectly over his torso as he moved with this untouchable ease. I lifted my chin, staring slack-jawed at the apparition, taken in by his movie poster appeal. He looked back at me and entered my space. I thought, man, this stuff is strong. I thought, I’m pretty good at making pictures like that. I thought, if I could get a pen on paper, I might be a really great artist.
David brushed his hand over my shoulder. I shivered.
‘It’s crazy to run into you here!’ His breath was hot on my neck as he leaned down to speak over the music. I said it didn’t really seem like his scene, not quite the orchestra pit. And he laughed a little then looked at me like I hadn’t seen before.
I didn’t know what to say to him. He looked great. I knew I was jittery, half a man, more a shadow to him.
‘This guy is so good.’ I followed his gaze up to the DJ booth then back to David’s eager smile and I agreed and moved my hands when I spoke, so it seemed like I really did. I thought the music was sort of gooey and I liked jumping up and down when I came in and then working out other ways to move around was fun too. It had lost its lustre a bit when it started to blend with my heart in my chest and maybe David’s in his own chest because he was standing quite close to me, and I thought it just sounded like the same beat over and over again and who cares? I mean, who really cares? And I started to tell David that we should survey everyone. To see how many were fading in and out of joy or pretending to like it for their friend who liked it.
‘You’re pretty high.’ He said high but I knew he meant weird, even if he was smiling. I shook my head, and we looked at each other for a moment before he kissed me. It was nice. I thought that we probably looked strange. He was the real thing. I don’t remember being bothered by it.
We left through a simple exchange. His hands stuck to me, guided me through the crowd, showed me how to say goodbye to Cameron. Then outside, hit by the wind, David ordered a car. He double-clicked to pay and didn’t say anything.
In his apartment was a long couch and a nice rug and a big painting. I stood in front of it while he did something else. I stood close. The canvas was wide, and these brilliant blues crawled out in spires from the centre. I looked over the brush strokes, how they flicked up full of texture and full of life. I wondered if the artist was happy when he painted it or just working. I imagined his fingers cramping up around the paintbrush and the muscles of his forearm moving with each stroke and if that really felt like what he was supposed to be doing.
I told David I didn’t get the painting.
‘I don’t either.’ He put his arms over my chest and pulled my gaze away from it.
When we kissed, he touched my face, my neck, the edges of my hair that had grown too long. I couldn’t anticipate his movement. I couldn’t copy his performance of desire. We moved unmirrored, jutted against each other, leaping into want.
He removed his shirt, and I watched each button fall away with excitement. I’d played it over and over in my head, approached the dream from every which way. He laid back, undressed and raw and he looked a lot like me.
Matt Richardson
Submitted photography
Amelia Rogers
The more I give to you, the further out of view. Alighting like leaves, on the avocado tree. The sun sets for me, but it rises for you, Deep, seep, leap, weep,
Share with me your depth and woe; all is fair, Ripe fruit—apple, mandarin, orange and plum, Baked goods, fire burning, spices in the air, Sending my love via the sun.
Night and day, have never felt so far away, The avocado droops, begs for you to stay.
Avery Ballantyne
Buzz, buzz.
There is no onomatopoeia to accurately describe the next sound. The third was, emphatically, a crunch. The fourth and fifth? A groan and thud in quick succession.
With eyes still scrunched closed, I sit up and lean forward, cupping my hands in front of my face to catch any loose glass. When there is none, I blink open my eyes, only to be greeted by a spiderweb of cracks.
Ah shit, how the fuck did I manage that?
I rub my forehead, feeling the heat building up where the ball had struck, before setting aside my glasses. After a quick glance is rendered pointless by their absence, I quickly retrieve them to assess any collateral damage my clumsy ass has caused.
Focusing through the gaps in the web, I spy the ball I’d been bouncing off my bedroom wall a few moments ago. It rests comfortably, nestled amongst my growing pile of laundry like a meteor sitting snugly in its crater.
Seeing nothing damaged, I let out a sigh—one I nearly choke on as I remember why I fumbled the ball in the first place. I scramble for my phone on the bedside table, a bubble of apprehension and anticipation building in my chest. I wake the screen...and it pops. It's not them.
With no developments, I return to my earlier activity—minus the basketball—of lying aimlessly on my bed while my mind runs endless loops, replaying the day, trying to discern what it might expect to happen next.
I was sitting on a stopped tram. It had just pulled in, and was waiting for the change of drivers, before it would head back up Elizabeth Street the way it had come. The music in my earbuds was enough to entertain me, as I watched the city flow.
The original driver disembarked and strode back along the tracks. That was when it happened. They stepped out of the little green box in the middle of the tram stop, briefly exchanged words with the previous driver, then turned and made their way towards the tram.
It didn’t matter that, for them, it was just another day at work; that they wore an old high-vis polo and well-worn work boots. My brain skimmed right over the mundanity of their day-to-day state. Maybe it was their hair, or their eyes, or the way their skin shone in the afternoon glow, but something about them was just... magnetic.
It was the best I could do to keep myself from staring as they climbed aboard and into the driver’s cab. I could still make out their reflection in one of their mirrors, and I watched, transfixed, as their expression became focused, and they began interacting with the controls. My stupor was only shaken by the need to steady myself as the tram moved off, at which point, some degree of reality set in.
In two stops’ time, I was getting off that tram and starting my shift. Given the hundreds of trams running at any given time, the chances of running into one specific driver again were practically none. I had no time, let alone an idea of how, to try and talk to them. I sat there, wracking my brains, while the next stop came and went.
As I saw my stop drawing alongside us, I panicked and stood up. From my usual spot near the middle of the tram, I squeezed between passengers to the front. As I arrived, the doors swung open. I opened my mouth, saw the small group waiting to embark, glanced over my shoulder at the driver through the plexiglass screen and nearly fell down the steps as our eyes met.
‘Thank you!’ is all I managed to blurt out before ducking out the door.
Pathetic.
I glanced back at them as I crossed the road at the end of the platform and could have sworn, they were looking at me for just a split second.
Ugh, I probably just convinced myself of that to make myself feel better, I think, rubbing at my forehead, or to sound less like an idiot when James asked me why I was so spacey when I clocked on.
‘And you’re telling me all you said was “Thank you”?’ he asked, incredulous.
‘What was I supposed to say? “Hi, I know you’re busy, but would you mind giving me your number?”’
‘No, dumb ass, you just slip your number through a gap in the screen, and do something memorable, like a hair flick, or a call me signal.’
‘A call me signal?’
‘Ok, ok, cringey, but you know what I mean.’
‘Pft, no wonder you’re still single.’
‘Ouch.’
I laughed at the mock offense he took, but underneath I was facepalming myself. What an idiot—can’t even think to slip someone my number.
The rest of that four-hour shift had been dull, punctuated only by James’s occasional jabs about ‘love at first tram’ or PTV being my new favourite dating app. I guess that’s what work besties are for, huh? By the time I stepped out into the cold, walking briskly back towards my tram stop, I was very much out of it.
I stood waiting for perhaps three minutes before a number 19 came trundling along. I took a sip from my water bottle, and as I did so, the wind caught the lid and sent it rolling along the platform just as the tram was pulling in. Realising I was likely to miss this one now, I ran to catch the lid before another gust could take it out of reach. To my surprise, when I turned back, the tram was still there, doors open, waiting.
Embarrassed, I hurried to the nearest door, the front, and stepped inside. I looked up to nod my thanks and... there they were. I’m pretty sure whatever came out of my mouth was just gibberish at that point. I went to my seat and realised, once again, that I was only going two stops.
There’s no way that was total coincidence, though, I think to myself, moving at last to retrieve my basketball, it had to be some sort of fate.
Still reeling from the fact that I had been given a second chance, but not willing to look a gift horse in the mouth, I began scrounging around in my bag, desperately looking for a pen and paper of any kind.
From now on, I’m never leaving the house without a notebook.
My stop rolled around, and I threw the tatty grey lead I’d found back in my bag. I nearly tripped trying to walk to the front while the tram was still moving and came to an awkward stop at the driver’s cab. I’m pretty sure I flashed the most uncomfortable of smiles at them as, through the little holes for speaking, I slipped a rolled-up price tag from work; my number scrawled hastily on the back.
They gave me what I think was a look of shock and confusion. I panicked, nearly running as I sped off down the platform, and now I’m here—on my bed, in my room, nearly three hours later.
‘That was so bad,’ I sigh to the ceiling.
There’s no way they even read that. It probably looked like I was dropping crap in there just to be an asshole.
Frustrated, I begin bouncing the basketball off my wall again, forgetting where that had led me before.
Ah well. Not like I had much of a chance with someone like that anyway.
Buzz, buzz.
The next sequence of sounds is already familiar. There remains, however, no adequate word in the English language to evoke the resounding, tinny, echo of a basketball striking you square in the face.
‘Again!?’ I ask myself, gritting my teeth in pain and frustration.
This time, my hands do catch loose glass, which I deposit into my glasses case with some difficulty, before I grab my phone.
Squinting, and holding the phone right up to my face, I barely manage to make out what it says.
“New Message – Unknown”
My heart skips a beat.
“So uhh... is this the part where I offer to buy you a drink, or was a tour of the driver’s cab more what you were angling for? ‘Cos I gotta warn you, it’s not that interesting in there.”
Submitted comics
Sophie Robertson
Enter the ring. Feel the pull in your navel, luring you out of the shadows like an old friend. The small hand nestled in your lower back gently pushes you forward and you’re in.
A white light floods the arena. Pearls of sand scatter around your scuffed leather boots to grant your passage.
Draw out the scarlet sash from a slip in your jacket pocket— a myriad of gemstones clinking with glee.
The bright sun glares down through your eyelashes, blurring your vision—that’s when you spot it.
Opponent. Enemy.
As if from nowhere, a gust of wind flicks sand into your eyes, and a cruel laughter tickles your ears.
You bring the sash to your eyes to wipe away the grains, forgetting the first rule of combat.
Crimson reds are locked and set—you’re caught in the act with a red dot to your forehead, eyes wide as saucers.
The jet-black beast ripples its many muscles, radiating out from the terrific body. Sharp, furious steam erupts from its nostrils. Cutting horns slice your vision line, like a knife sliding through oozing, tender meat.
Not even a blink, and the beast has burst into motion, a frightening thud rumbles from each push into the shaking earth.
A voice screams from the inside out. FIGHT!
But your stomach drops.
You’re served on a sliver platter, bound by the chains that keep you still, hors d’oeuvre and all.
As the mouth opens to consume, a voice calls out. Do something.
You snap yourself awake. Eyes wide open. You see it now— charging towards you. The challenger.
The roar of the surrounding crowd beckons and prods, peanut gallery yelling for more.
After all you’ve been through, each ring you’ve walked away from, they’ve defined and shaped you.
Against all odds, you see your worn leather boots and calloused hands. They yearn for another fight.
You release that bloody rag from white-knuckled hands, the lustre now dull with sand as it sinks to the ground.
Arms wide and heart deep as a canyon, you open and become the biggest version of yourself—ready for it, wanting it.
You stretch up, toes leaving the ground and extend like elastic. Hands reach out to the stars, fingertips pulsing with your heartbeat. Body singing; a white song that screams.
Fly, even just for a moment.
Twist, turn and grab that bull by the horns.
Kimberley Horrigan
My home is a small island of crystal waters and sweeping hills, where the sound of the ocean never goes unheard. But Crete was not all that it seemed, for way down beneath its fragile beauty, in the cold and stoney dark, lay a beast that made it legend.
First, you would feel a soft vibration beneath your feet, and as it became more violet the trees would shake, dropping their fruit. Then terrible, primal cries of hunger would echo to the surface. My home's legend and the beast that dwelled underneath only fed my father's cruelty and vanity. The minotaur was his greatest strength and the thing he feared most to lose.
My days on Crete were either spent in fear or with my sister. Ariadne was kind, gentle, all smooth lines and curves. From the way the corners of her mouth curled when she so often smiled, to the soft curve of her arms as they moved over her head when she danced. Her heart was so big that she had room in it to take pity on the insatiable monster that rumbled below. She didn’t like that it was all alone down there, in the dark and cold, unable to escape. I never felt anything but a deep fear and resentment for it and what its creation had cost our family. But, to Ariadne, its violent wails became cries of loneliness and desperation in her ears.
I was always the wounded pup by her side, with hair that would not obey and a mouth that did not know when to shut. I always tried, in vain, to emulate the grace of both mind and body that my sister possessed. My own tendencies were far too blunt. Where she saw the beauty of a fresh vase of flowers in bloom, I saw something that would eventually whither and rot.
Despite the contrast of our natures, we were true companions. We held onto each other out of love and fear, of both the beast in the labyrinth below and our father's wicked temper. One thing we saw through the same eyes was the cruel custom that served to remind everyone of the might of Crete and to sate the minotaur's hunger for human flesh. Once a year, the tides carried in ten poor souls from Athens to be hunted for sport by the minotaur.
When I was twelve, Ariadne and I stood at the end of the docks as the Athenian ship came in. It was a day that was cruelly beautiful, clear skies and soft warm sun that lured the Athenians to their doom. Ariadne buried her head into my shoulder.
‘I don’t think I can look at them, Phaedra,’ she whispered. I could tell from the breathlessness in her voice that tears were welling in her eyes. I took her arm in mine as they came off the ship. First was a man, his chin was held high, but his breath was fast and shallow. Next was a girl, she looked the same age as me, perhaps. Her long, raven hair covered her eyes as she walked slowly down the dock. Her shoulders rose and fell sporadically and as she got closer, I began to hear her stifled sniffs. The ship brought in nine weary Athenians who feared their inevitable gruesome death, their bodies being violently torn apart, the last face they see being that of a horned beast, eyes wide with rage. But there was one other among them, whose face was not dark and gaunt with sleeplessness and dread. Little did we know then that the tides had also ushered in the ruining of Crete's fearsome legacy, and the ruining of a great many other things.
Theseus was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen. His hair was spun from gold. Curls framed a face carved by the Gods themselves. His eyes, a dark and intense brown, shimmered like gold in the sun.
‘King Minos,’ he said, head held high. ‘I am Theseus, Prince of Athens, I have come to defeat your minotaur and with it, free my people.’
My father only laughed. ‘You may try, boy.’
Ariadne and I could not help but be immediately infatuated with him. His bravery was the kind only found in the heroes of old and his beauty was unparalleled. But I was naïve then to the fickle nature of heroes and the children of Gods. I should have known then that his princely charm and beauty were but a sickly-sweet perfume to mask the bitter rot of his deceptions, his lies. But I was just a girl then. …
Two nights had passed since Theseus’s arrival when I was woken by Ariadne shaking my shoulders. I grumbled.
‘Phaedra, you need to listen to me very carefully,’ she whispered. ‘Theseus is going to defeat the minotaur tomorrow and I'm going to help him.’
‘How? It's impossible,’ I said, still in a half-asleep daze.
‘I went to visit him in the cells the night he arrived, and we have made a plan together,’ she said. Then she smiled, a pearly grin under the moon's light. ‘Then, we will sail away to Athens in the early hours where he is to make me his wife.’ She let out an excited giggle.
That made me sit up in bed. Many thoughts flew quickly through my
mind. How would they do it? Was my sister so willing to abandon her home, and me, for a man she had met a few days ago? To be a willing participant in the beast's death?
‘And when Father finds him dead and the two of you gone, who do think he will blame? You may be saving us from one beast, but if you do this, you condemn me to a fate with a far worse one.’
Her stare then became more intense, and she took my hand.
‘That’s why I want you to come with us.’
At this I let out a stifled laugh.
‘And do what? Live as traitor to my family in a foreign land where we are hated?’
‘But we will not be hated, you see, we will be the heroes who freed Athens from a tyrant, and we will be under the protection of Theseus and his father,’ she told me.
‘And you believe this because he smiled sweetly at you and promised marriage?’
‘Don't you see, Phaedra, this is for the best. Theseus is kind and honorable. We will have a better life in Athens, you'll see. It is like you said, your fate will be worse if you stay.’
All I could do was look down, picking at the skin on my hands and contemplating that life, where I would never be allowed to return home.
‘And where would I meet you?’ I whispered.
Ariadne gave a deep sigh of relief. ‘In the cove past the orchards, just before sunrise a small boat will be waiting to take us away. It's all arranged.’
I gave a small nod and looked up at her, the night's shadows deepening the lines on my sullen face. My sister hugged me.
‘Until then,’ she said with a smile before creeping soundlessly from the room.
That was the last time I ever saw my sister's face. To me, she has always remained frozen in that moment, full of hope and heroic spirit. I like that I can remember her this way. It is far less painful than imagining what became of her. I did go to the cove past the orchards just before sunrise, but I saw no boat, only the minotaur's head on a spike and its guts splayed across the beach, blood seeping into the sand. I knew my sister would not have betrayed me and left without me, and I knew those lands like the back of my hand, so it was no fault of my own.
Later, I would be told tales about that fateful night and why that boat left without me on it, but never the truth.
In the aftermath, my father’s rage and madness consumed him, so much so I don’t think he ever realised one of his daughters was missing.
All I ever heard from him were the babblings of a frantic madman. One night in a white-hot rage, he left in search of Theseus. It was not long after that word traveled back to Crete that he had died at sea.
For a short time, I was at peace. My brother, Deucalion, returned home to take my father's place. The joy of seeing him again was quickly suffocated by the news he bore me, that my sister was dead, bitten by a snake on the journey to Athens. I barely had time to mourn when I was told that I would be taken to Athens, to cement ties between Crete and Athens by becoming Theseus’s bride. He did not protect my sister as he had promised, had left her body on some small island, and yet I would have to be tortured by his face for the rest of my life.
He met me upon my arrival in Athens, looking down in shame. He made many promises to me that day. He promised that he had loved Ariadne and had done all he could to save her life. He promised that he would love me just as he had my sister and that I would want for nothing as Athen's queen. Looking into his tear-covered eyes I could not help but see my sister reflected in them. Did he make her all these same promises before he left her to rot?
Kayla Willson
Like that aching electric riff
Deep twangs vibrate within my core
You rhythmically pluck at strings that exist only in my mind
Baritones roll across my skin, polishing and smoothing me like river stones
I beg you, please, release me
From this addictive misery
Where I can now only find comfort in your warmth
Where I see your steel eyes in place of mine
You’ll be the death of me, but I’ll take it as fate
And you’ll revel in it
Destroying me with your killer disposition
A blade forged in a fire of passion and promises
Feeding off this mutual destruction
To a song from so long ago
You’d smile so sweetly
Holding me tenderly as I fall apart at the seams
You are my knight in shining armour
My angel, dearest
Everything good and pure
That will consume me whole
Devoured and left a shell
I’ll let you burn me to nothing more than breathless whispers
Afraid of the things carried on the wind
jamin
Submitted artwork
Size 30cm diameter
Medium
Acrylic and marker on circular canvas
Description
“star girl” seeks to portray the concept of flirting in a literal and evocative manner. The artwork explores the effect of the act, depicting a character who is simultaneously vulnerable and empowered. This duality is expressed through the character’s enthrallment, highlighting the captivating and consuming nature of the experience.
Brittany Mackay
A glass is placed in front of Madison with a delicate clink.
Gazing to her right she sees a man––mid-thirties, balding, wedding ring still on––saluting with his own glass. Not even the decency to take off his ring before hitting on her.
She keeps eye contact as she takes the glass and slowly pours it over the beer mat. Every drop that leaves the glass reflects the hope in his eyes evaporating.
‘Bitch.’ He stalks off. Madison’s just thankful he didn’t stick around.
‘Sorry,’ she directs to the bartender. They must be new as she’s never seen them before. She might as well have her name etched into the seat with how frequently she parks herself here.
With a flourish only a trained bartender could possess, the mat is scooped up and the expensive drink flows down the drain. ‘All good. Worth it after seeing you eviscerate him without words.’
‘It’s my party trick.’
‘So I’ve heard.’ The bartender flicks the polishing cloth over their shoulder, continuing to clean up each empty glass placed on the counter.
‘Heard?’
A secret smile crosses the bartender’s face, left cheek dimpled. ‘I heard everything about you when I got hired. The lonesome blonde bombshell that sits at the bar. Arrives alone. Leaves alone. Always orders off the cocktail menu.’
‘I could be meeting someone. They could be waiting outside for me.’ Leaning back Madison takes a long look at the bartender––tall and slender, androgenous in the sharpness of their cheekbones but fullness in their hips.
‘If anyone was lucky enough to be picking you up, they’d storm in and make a show of it,’ they state matter-of-factly.
‘Aren’t you gonna kick me out? Must be bad for business, scaring all the customers off.’
The bartender laughs, sharp like a hyena. ‘Wanna hear a secret? Every night you’re here the bar fills to the brim. Every booth is taken, every stool is sat on. They gravitate around you, hoping to bask in your warmth like the last dying ember of a fire. And you could care less.’
‘Now that makes me sound like a right bitch.’
‘Well, this bitch keeps my rent paid with all the tips I make serving you drinks from the overly friendly.’
‘Ah, so you are complicit in my harassment.’ They both laugh.
‘Then I’ll make you a deal. I’ll make sure only the most expensive cocktails come your way from your fans, and you won’t call the cops on me or tell my boss.’
The deal is sealed with a firm handshake.
One lazy Monday night after work, Madison passes the smokers outside the bar, parting though the mist like a curtain. Dressed in their usual, towel slung over their shoulder, the bartender leans forward to better hear the current customer.
Their eyes lock as Madison floats forward. Gracefully she sits, placing her thick coat over her lap. A delicate clink of a glass follows as a Martini is placed in front of her.
The first sip of zesty lemon is refreshing as the bartender stands on the other side of the counter, eyes still fixed on Madison. ‘How was your selection of drinks on Friday?’
‘How’d you know I was here on Friday? Wait don’t tell me; you might end up incriminating yourself.’
‘Me? Never. Todd, who was on that night, said you were around.’
‘Well, it’s fine. Todd kept it coming.’ A single finger glides along the rim of the glass, slick like ice and just as cold. ‘Maybe I’ve found myself a new favourite.’
‘I’m your favourite?’
In lieu of a reply, Madison takes the drink and downs it in one go, uncaring of the burn of vodka—anything to hide the slight flush to her cheeks. ‘Was,’ she mutters to herself.
‘I like a little competition.’ A Cheshire-like grin builds slowly on the bartender’s face, eyes hooded by thick eyeliner and mascara. Madison wants to bite into their lip and watch it redden. Would the shock of pain or lust cross the bartenders face first. ‘Bold of you to assume I plan to stay tied down to just one bartender.’
‘How ‘bout tied up?’
A glance to the left then the right confirms no other customer hears. The bartender doesn’t seem to care though with the way their eyes never waver, fixed like predator to prey.
Madison arches a brow. ‘Do you speak to all your customers like that or am I just special?’
Leaning forward, thin fingers whisking the glass away the bartender whispers, ‘only my favourites.’
Ophelia Murray
To: kenandersonn2@hotmail.com
From: angiewiez23@gmail.com
Sent: Friday 23 Jun 02:35am
Subject: Re: Last Saturday?
Hiya Kennedy,
I got your email. I’m sorry that it’s taken me so long to get back to you – it’s my fault because I know that I meant to give you my number last Saturday night, and I kept seeing you at school, but I couldn’t really face coming up to you. Not because of anything you’ve done (of course!!!), just because I have been super embarrassed haha.
I’m so glad you found my email, though! I assume through the newsletter? The school council is always putting it in there, haha. Basically, I wanted to apologise. I was really really drunk on Saturday, and I totally blacked out, and I was even super surprised to see you out because I have just always kind of assumed that single mums don’t go out a lot? I don’t know. I think that’s really silly of me to think now, because of course you do. I should have known Archie had a mum who went a little wild!!! Hahah I couldn’t even believe that was you up there on karaoke because you were just so amazing! Your voice is like an angel. I’m sorry if this is all over the place, it’s just that it’s a Friday night and I’ve had a few glasses of wine.
I won’t lie. I have read your email like 900 times to try and convince myself that everything is okay between us. I hope it is. I’m really sorry, but I don’t remember saying all those things. I can be a really massive flirt when I get tipsy, and even more so when I’m drunk, so I am so sorry that happened in front of you ☺ I think I just have been seeing you on the other side of the courtyard all year while we wait for the bell, and you always look so well put together and nice that I just have been wanting to meet you for a really long time. Does that make sense? And so, when I did finally meet you, I just overshared way too much. I do really love Tim, and I’m super embarrassed I told you that I didn’t that night. Every relationship has its rocky parts, and I think we are just in that right now. I sometimes need some nights to myself, and it made it even better to run into you. Thank you for your concern and your care, but I really don’t feel that way about you.
With all that being said, do you still feel okay looking after Oscar on Wednesday afternoons? I know he loves walking home with Archie and I wanted to check. I can have Tim come around and pick him up if you don’t want to see me anymore. I would still like to see you, but that might be beside the point. Also, is there any chance you can give me the contact details for the babysitter you used last Saturday? I’m gonna try and get Tim to come with me to that place you recommended ☺
See you on Monday at pickup?
Angie xxx
Aimee Nair
Submitted artwork
Aimee Nair
Submitted artwork
Vanessa Chim
Lola was 14 when she first fell for Atlas. She was watching him compete in a basketball tournament, though he didn’t know she existed. In high school, Atlas was an exceptional basketball player, while Lola was just an ordinary student who never got the chance to know him. As time went on, Atlas started dating a popular cheerleader, and Lola’s feelings for him gradually faded.
Months later, after Atlas broke up with his girlfriend, Lola started befriending him. They began interacting more on Instagram, and even spending time together. Lola knew he was bad for her because of his smoking and vaping habits and the number of bad influential friends he had in school, but she didn't care. She always chose to stay by his side. Lola would often stay awake all night just to talk to him. She would constantly hear how sad he was about the breakup with his ex-girlfriend and how he felt, but he never once asked about her.
Soon after, Atlas’s parents compelled him to transfer to another school due to falling in with the wrong crowd. Since then, they stopped talking.
A notification from Instagram: ‘Atlas replied to your story’.
One message brought them back together after years of silence. It was during the pandemic, when everyone was stuck at home, isolated by the contagious virus. They started texting and calling each other constantly. Before Lola knew it, those old feelings resurfaced, and she found herself falling for him all over again.
After years of admiring Atlas, Lola decided to make her first move and confess her feelings to him. She was anxious about his response, and after many sleepless nights, she decided to give him a call.
Atlas, who was only a phone call away, told Lola he felt the same way she did, and they decided to date.
A month into the relationship, after the lockdown had been lifted, Lola noticed that they hadn’t done any of the things expected of a couple. Instead, Atlas would always find reasons not to meet Lola, only seeing her when it was convenient for him. He only called her when he felt like it. Atlas would occasionally body-shame Lola and compare her to his ex-girlfriend, despite knowing she had an eating disorder. He even lied to his mother about Lola's existence when she bought her a Mother's Day cake in the hopes of introducing her to his family. While Lola was doing everything she could to show him love, Atlas was planning to end their relationship while stringing her along because he loved the attention she was giving him.
After two months, Lola decided to confront Atlas about his behaviour. She sent the long passage she had prepared for Atlas for weeks, believing that they could solve this problem together, unaware that it was her last message to him.
It took her months to process the relationship. Eventually, she decided to write a closure letter to Atlas, with no intention of ever sending it. She spent hours writing, scribbling, and crying, and before she could even finish the last sentence, the page was filled with tears and unsaid words. In that moment, she realised that Atlas didn’t love her for who she was, but he loved the attention she gave him. He loved being showered in the affection she had denied herself for years.
Before she put the letter in her memory box, she was forced to move on from a young love that never existed, and the love she wished she could give herself.
Kimberley Horrigan
SkateWorld
I used to love going to the roller rink for some kid's birthday. It housed a strange mix of activities. There was the roller rink, of course, then there was a jumping castle to one side, I think for the smaller kids who couldn't skate. Around one of the corners, I think there was some pokies. Or maybe they were just pinball machines and arcade games or something, I never really went in that part. Its sticky linoleum floors swirled in outrageous pinks and greens and blues. Its dark purple carpet had some kind of celestial pattern. I remember there was a huge hand-painted Harry Potter mural that covered one of the walls. There wasn't anything else that suggested a Harry Potter theme in the rest of the space. Except for maybe the faux castle-looking tower where the DJ was, and you could walk up and request a song. At the time, I didn't question why there was a massive, slightly off-brand looking Harry Potter on the wall. I guess in adult spaces you assume everything there has a specific and important reason for being there and you're just a kid, so you don't question it.
Whenever I remember the roller rink, Mum scrunches up her face and, is reminded of how much she hated taking me there. It was so dirty and yuck there, she says, and I'm sure she's not wrong. It does feel like the kind of place that's always covered in a layer of accumulated, kidmade grime that can never truly be scrubbed away. The tables we ate sausage rolls and party pies off were probably filthy or at most absentmindedly wiped down by some poor, underpaid high schooler. But I wasn't really thinking about things like that back then. Once I walked through those doors, I was giving myself over to the safe and trustworthy arms of whoever was in charge of that hallowed establishment. I'd always start out rusty on the skates, not having rollerbladed since the last time I went to a party there. I’d cling to the side for dear life and make my way around the rink with caution. But by the time they brought out the limbo bar, the hands were off, and I was getting around the rink comfortably, even skating backwards if I was feeling brave.
I didn't really care that it was a shitty roller rink because I didn't really know that it was a shitty roller rink. If I were to walk in now, sure, I would likely be horrified by the strange amalgamation of activities haphazardly mushed together and I probably would feel that immovable grime cling to my hands and clothes and I would certainly question the reasoning behind big, unsettling Harry Potter. But then, it all made sense. Existed in a strange harmony that is maybe better not being fully understood.
There is a waiting room, so we wait. Sitting in fake leather burgundy chairs that let out a heaving sigh of air when you sit in them. I start to pick away at the corner of it. It seems I've had some help from previous people who have also been made to wait. I pick at the white stringy bits that have come off the fabric underneath the fake leather, revealing its deception. Also peeking through is a pad of yellow foam. It's already been worked on by the chair’s previous inhabitants, so the foam isn't as ripe for picking. I find a piece to pick off anyway; it crumbles into yellow dust between my thumb and pointer finger. The ceiling is cut up into white squares, but some of the squares are lights that bear their cool white glow onto the room. There is a secondary glow coming from the light’s reflection in the polished floor. There's no sense of day or night in here, it exists somewhere else entirely. The sterile glow washes through the room and feels like it's there to keep some greater darkness at bay.
There are other people waiting too, in their own slippery, burgundy chairs. A woman hunched over with her head between her knees, a man next to her has a hand on her back and makes absent minded circles over it. Another man is leaned backward so his legs are crossed in front of him, his head rested on the top of the chair. His eyes are closed for
the most part but quickly open at the sound of footsteps. I wonder what or who they are waiting for. We may have a lot in common, or nothing besides the fact that we are waiting. I pick up one of the magazines from the table at the end of the room and idly flip through. My blank, glossed eyes stare at a crossword puzzle for a bit, but it's so cryptic it's annoying, so I decide it is using too much of my brain power and set it down. The man trying to sleep has his name called by a nurse who leads him out of this purgatory, like an angel leading weary souls from this world to the great hereafter. The rest of us just have to sit in this strange room, waiting for our turn to be led to paradise.
Give me just one more day back at the old house. The one I thought would always be there. I mean, it's still there; I drive by sometimes if I'm in the area and just sit in the car for a while. But it's no longer ours, just another set of bricks that make walls, tiles that make a roof and glass that makes windows. It had a massive lemon tree out the back. We never knew why it was so big and so abundant. We never did anything to maintain it except for a trim of the branches that got too low. But that was more because they were a nuisance than anything else. Yet still, it provided us with more lemons than we knew what to do with.
The doorways and brass fittings that I used to see and touch a hundred times a day and never noticed, not really. Now I ache to remember. I have to shut my eyes and squint to really think about what they looked like. The glass doorknobs that were there when we moved in were a different color for every room. White for the master bed, red for the bathroom, blue for one bedroom and yellow for the other. I didn't think I would ever need to think so hard to remember them. But does it remember us I wonder? Does the doorway that I smacked my head into from running around the corner too quickly remember my face? Do its bricks hold the memories of every family dinner of ours and everyone who came before us? Or is it too consumed with the new memories being made there now? The new family dinners and nights curled up in front of the TV that go on as if we never existed.
It seems cruel somehow. We found out from our old neighbors that the big, abundant lemon tree had been cut down. I loved that tree and felt sad that someone else didn't see enough merit in its fruit to keep it. But it's not my tree anymore. I would have never seen it again anyway. It's theirs to do whatever they like with. But it still hurts. I wish I could dream about it more. Then I could still walk around, look in my old room and see the old cubby house outside, watch possums run along the fence and just simply feel the feeling of being in those walls again. Cocooned and safe. Like a voice softly whispering, ‘Welcome home’.
Katrina Holt
TW // depictions of sexual assault
You’ve only known him four hours. Five, maybe. Your brain’s throbbing a little and time seems to have lost its way. Perhaps it’s just the same feeling as before, that reluctant thrill from the moment you met. Only now it’s amplified by your proximity, by the heat of him, by the way your skin sticks together and his pupils inflame with a hunger that exists only for you. It’s beyond dizzying; you feel midway through a seizure. The edges of his face blur and flicker, blending with the black of his bedroom ceiling. Tendrils of darkness creep through his skin like infected veins.
It was his shyness that drew you in. Totally unable to look you in the eye, he fought hard to be heard over the pounding music and kept stumbling over his words every time you asked him a question. Maybe it was mostly pity that drove you to invite yourself back to his place, but here you are.
The vulnerability he’d shown all night at the bar is gone. That delicate blush to his cheeks is gone too, replaced by a furious redness that consumes every inch of his body, shimmering with the putrid sweat of his exertion in the lamplight. Those fluttering blonde eyelashes have vanished. Lids peeled back into his skull, his eyes bulge with a twisted focus that hooks into the corners of your skin and peels it all away. With its insulation gone, your blood freezes in the night air.
When his hands first clamped around your throat, you wasted those last few breaths before the air ran out. You should’ve used them to say no. Should’ve just told him to stop. Should’ve told him you’re not into that sort of thing, that you’re boring, normal and boring and not really interested in sex as a life-threatening experience, but it’s too late. Now what? Your strength has evaporated. The blood supply is cut off and the nerves refuse to fire. Weakly you paw at his forearms, watching the muscles in them ripple just beneath the surface while you desperately
gasp for air that won’t fit past his hands. Death whispers to you. Telling him to let go becomes a forgotten goal; all that’s left is a primal, panicking instinct that at last emerges from beneath the fear.
You start to thrash in his grip. Your legs flail, your arms convulse, your nails dig hard into his wrists until he lets out a hiss of pain. A sort of confused disappointment distorts his face into something softer, resembling what you saw hours ago. His humanity is restored. The vice around your neck is released. Blood rushes back to your brain with a sudden, bracing force that compels you to draw the whole room’s oxygen into your lungs at once, heaving, clawing at the burning skin of your throat. The awful shriek of air through your crushed windpipe is a deafening, industrial noise, and it heightens your terror beyond anything you’ve ever felt or imagined before. You’d scream if only you could find the voice to do it.
‘What’s wrong?’ His tone is indecipherable. Is it guilt, or annoyance? You could’ve killed me, you try to say. The croak you manage to get out instead bears no resemblance.
‘Alright, calm down,’ he tells you. You can’t stop wheezing. You can’t look at him, either, but you still feel the sting of his disdain. ‘Seriously, what’s the problem? Did you want me to ask first or what?’ He could’ve killed you. He could’ve actually killed you, and this is how he’s—
‘I didn’t even squeeze that hard.’
The heat in your face has lessened a little, cooled by icy air against the salt water gushing down your cheeks. The phantom pressure of his fingers hasn’t gone away. Your breathing stutters again and threatens to stop altogether.
‘Alright, fine, I should’ve asked,’ he says, utterly devoid of remorse. You shake your head, disgusted with him but mostly yourself for walking right into this and not telling him to fuck off while you still had the ability.
‘Not enough for you, is it?’
The room echoes with the strangled, grating sound of your sobs. You want nothing more than to go home, but your pulse still thumps against the sides of your skull with blinding force, and you know you’ll collapse the moment you stand up.
‘I’m sorry, alright?’ The tenderness you thought you’d seen in him earlier tonight appears to have finally returned. Except you don’t trust it anymore; you can’t. The bed dips beside you when he moves to sit closer. A hand, trembling from fatigue, falls to rest on your shoulder. ‘Sorry. It’s just—I dunno what your problem is. Every other girl seems to like it.’
And then you begin to wonder: if you hadn’t started fighting back, if you’d stayed paralysed and rigid with fear, would he think you liked it, too?
Eloise Higgins
I pick at my skin with ruddy worn-down fingernails as my brain picks apart anything in sight. Even in times of internal overactivity, there always needs to be something moving, a fidgeting of the exterior at the same rate. Both layers move in tandem, outer and inner. Body kept busy, mind left to run free. My hands roam across reddened cheeks, skidding across bumps, marking out moles, tracing new creases of scowls, furrows, and laughter made over the past several months. Meanwhile, my mind scrambles to grasp any words to make sense of these observations. My brain scrolls through my memories with a frantic speed, for any words said to me about what is currently being perceived, so that it can blast through the amplifier of my own inner monologue. I recall comments about skin and eyebags made years prior, as I go about the skin routine my sister recommended for beginners. I pay too close attention to how my mouth looks as I sing quietly to myself, for only a moment, and my brain zeroes in on every iota of orthodontic memory it can find.
These thoughts and memories have always accompanied me in these moments under my own scrutiny, championed by my brain as evidence of immoveable truths, solely due to the fact that they came from the outside world. I’ve been completely obsessed with how each aspect of my being could be scrutinised, obsessed with the worst-case scenario of people’s perceptions of me for as long as I can remember. In the darker moments, everything would become evidence, I wouldn’t even need an image to prompt it.
My attention cuts down briefly, from my face to the rest of me. Memories of words that echo between my ears every time I have one of these moments start to pour back into my headspace. I poke and prod at my own flesh and bones as if on another plane, some separate overseeing pedestal. I hear words from "well-meaning" family members of selfconsciousness and worry, made apparently 'only for my own sake'. A series of murmured comments of what other parents could think of me if I keep arriving on school days with skin covered in Band-Aids, what they would think of those attached to me.
The words become more pointed, as I recall more instances of backhanded lines followed by laughter from older family members, that I’d once been able to ignore due to my youthful ignorance—naivety. Small stings or pangs that could be pushed down until they were needed for evidence of my shortcomings, presented by my own subconscious. I realise amongst this flurry of mental activity that my hands have stopped moving. I return to a zit that had been bugging me as my mind continues to race. As this goes on, a specific memory rockets to the front of my focus, so vivid it's as if it’s happening in real time.
I am 11 years old, standing in front of a mirror I don’t know too well yet. It has a slightly too yellow overhead light for makeup, and empty draws, and no reason to make me afraid yet. I stand with an elder, my head quiet and face bright, as they gently remind me to 'make sure I pay attention to what I’m eating', and that 'I’m getting too old to eat without thinking'. I look down, my brightness faltering for just a moment. I don’t know what she means yet, but I will.
The zit I’ve been scratching at bursts and blood starts to pour down my cheek from a focused point. I reach for the Band-Aids in the top draw on the left without a second thought, acting purely on muscle memory.
Sydney Clive
//
We’d agreed to give it another shot, a night out at the pub like in the old days. What did we have to lose? Neither of us said this was the last chance to salvage things. But we both understood.
The evening started out okay. The steaks were nice and bloody, and, after the help of a little liquid courage, we were having a chinwag like this was our first date and not, potentially, the last. But then the fruit died on the vine and things turned sour. We got to relitigating the same old arguments, throwing blame back and forth like it was a game of hot fucking potato. It wasn’t over anything important. The same tired old bullshit. A sharp knife will cut deeply, but cleanly. It’s the blunted fuckers that hurt the worst.
Eventually, we’d tired ourselves out. We sat hunched over our pints. The low hum of the bar hardly penetrated our bubble of silence. I poked at the remnant of my steak, and he chewed unhappily on the chips. We’d become a couple of old queens. Like the ones we would have snickered at in our youth down in those basement dens draped in cobwebs of cigarette smoke. This pub’s air was clean; they didn’t allow smoking indoors these days.
I pushed out my stool and excused myself.
Stepping into the cool night air was like pressing a damp cloth to my face. Christ. It was like a coffin in there. I stalked a few paces away from the entrance. I stuck a ciggie between gritted teeth and fished around my jacket pocket for the lighter, patting myself down.
‘Can you bum us a fag?’
My hands froze and I turned to my left to see a young guy in an illfitting leather jacket leaning against the wall. He wore a buzz cut and a silver stud in one ear.
The still-unlit dart went slack in my mouth. ‘What?’
‘Spare us a cigarette, mate.’
‘Oh, sure.’ I offered him the pack and he kicked off the wall and helped himself.
Before I knew what was happening, he stepped in close and cupped one hand over the end of my cigarette and with the other, he held up a lighter. Click. The flame painted our faces golden.
‘Thanks,’ I murmured.
‘All good,’ he said, stepping back and lighting his own. He took a drag and looked upwards, expelling the smoke through his nostrils. He looked like the sort of sixteen-year-old that might pass for eighteen on lucky nights. ‘You’re a bit young to be hitting the pubs,’ I said.
‘That’s why I’m smoking out here and not in there,’ he snorted, casting the devil eye at Brandon the door bitch.
‘They’ve not let anyone smoke inside since I was your age,’ I said.
‘What’re you on about?’
Fixing the kid a look, I pursed my lips and let out a plume of smoke. We stood there smoking in silence for a minute or two. A few times I caught him glancing at me.
‘I’ve never actually been out here before,’ he said suddenly. I grunted. It was obvious the kid was desperate to talk to someone.
‘I’m Michael.’
He stuck out his hand and said, ‘Ewan.’
I shook his hand and looked into his eyes. A startling blue. ‘You don’t go out much?’
‘Yeah, I don’t… none of my friends are—’ He turned his head away from me. ‘Yeah.’
‘Do your folks know?’
He said nothing.
I remembered what it was like when Mum and Dad had found out, I couldn’t have been much older than the kid was now. I moved in with the man now waiting for me back inside shortly thereafter. Dad hadn’t let me visit when Mum got sick. The bastard.
‘Are you here with anyone?’ he asked, turning back to face me.
Now it was my turn to look away. I took a drag and said, ‘Yeah. With my husband. He hates it when I smoke but only because he swore off it a few years back. He loves the smell, and he hates that he still loves it.’
‘Husband? What century are you living in?’
‘Mate, what century are you living in?’ I checked over his clothes. Very nineties. ‘Ewan wouldn’t happen to be your middle name, would it?’
The boy nearly swallowed his cigarette. He regained his composure, tried to look nonchalant. ‘Kenneth’s a stupid name.’
‘Ewan does suit you better.’
‘But how did you know?’
‘I have my methods, Ewan.’
‘Fuck you, Sherlock,’ he laughed, and I was laughing with him.
‘Things will be better after high school,’ I found myself saying. ‘You’ll find your people.’
‘That right?’ he sneered, but his eyes betrayed his desperation.
‘Things will get better,’ I repeated. ‘It’ll be harder, too. But it’ll be worth something.’
‘Has it been worth it for you?’
I looked back to Brandon the door bitch and the entrance leading down into the bar. ‘Yes, it has. And it will be for you, too.’
‘What’d you say your name was?’ he asked.
I flicked my cigarette to the kerb and stamped it out beneath the heel of my boot. I smiled and he smiled at me, in a way that felt as familiar as an old blanket, and yet achingly new. Like it was the first time he’d ever smiled that way to anyone in his life.
Brandon and I exchanged a nod as I stepped back into the warmth and dull murmuring of the pub. I patted my man on the back as I slid back on my stool. I stole a chip and popped it into my mouth.
‘Hey,’ I said.
‘Hey, Sherlock.’
Matt Richardson
We do not see each other’s faces. We are blind to them, ghosts meeting briefly before flitting away again, unable to tell anyone of the encounter
It is better that way, safer. Nameless and faceless, we press against each other in the dark, seeking pleasure that would no doubt be better if we truly knew each other. But we meet in unknown places, an unspoken agreement in the way we stand close, so close, and do not say a word.
When we’re done, one of us will lie in the bed or rest against the cold brick wall or kneel on the concrete floor we had fallen onto in our desperation. The other will zip up their pants and catch their breath and maybe, if they’re kind, clean us both up. A shirt or toilet paper or sometimes a warm washcloth that caresses the skin like we could care about each other for longer than the single moment that we cannot ever talk about.
But sometimes we cannot help it, sometimes the words spill out. Sometimes, quietly, discreetly, with false words and codes, we share our experiences with someone we think might understand. A friend of Dorothy. They whisper back about similar moments. There’s a solidarity and a loneliness to the quiet words in the corner of a loud bar.
The process is repeated: ignore the face, the voice, the name muttered hopefully into the space between. Forget it; focus only on the bodies moving closer and closer, the hands grasping hips, and the tug— the pull—to somewhere quieter.
Again. Kissing a nameless face and a faceless name, hands pressing bodies down, down, down.
And again. The pleasure coursing through for a series of instants, noises spilled into the air only to be muffled and swallowed.
And again. Cleaning up, putting clothes back on, looking like nothing had ever happened. Sometimes we say goodbye. Sometimes we say, ‘see you later’. We never do.
Though we try to. We go back to the club, the bar, the bathroom on a side street we heard rumours about. We look for a face, a name, a voice, but we do not know these things. We chose not to know these things. All we can do is go and hope and run if we think we’re going to be caught.
We dream on other nights, in our beds or at our jobs. We dream of what could be if we knew faces and names, if we did not have to disappear into the darkness at the end of the night.
We dream and we wake and we long for something familiar. On good nights we go out to the same places, follow the same routines and hope that one day, we will be able to recognise something we’d done before through the lines of a known but unknown body.
It will never happen, but we do it again and again and again.
They sat side by side in his second-hand silver Mazda. She arranged her pleated skirt so it fell smoothly over her thighs. He watched, hands resting on the steering wheel, the engine idling. A single strand of hair was stuck to her glossy pink lips, and the corner of his mouth rose as he reached over to brush it behind her ear.
She hid a smile, the air between them glowing as she met his gaze. He flexed his fingers, pushed down the handbrake and shifted into drive. She turned her head to look out the window, gentle moonlight illuminating the blush painted on her cheeks and the tiny, sparkly hearts dangling from her earlobes. She made eye contact with herself in the side mirror. Her eyes were bright, as if they held a secret she didn’t know yet.
‘You look beautiful.’
With one hand on the steering wheel, he rested his forearm easily on the edge of the open window as he merged onto the M80. The balmy night air blew through, smelling like summer and lifting the hair at the napes of their necks. She looked over at him, watching the way his throat bobbed as he swallowed, the glow of the dashboard lights cast on his face, and the fact that the top button of his shirt was undone.
He looked over at her, lingering on her carefully lined cupid's bow, the freckles dusted across her nose, the loose curls escaping her braid.
He smiled as he took her in, a fluttering warmth settling into his bones.
‘I love you.’
His words had been low, but they landed, striking her under her ribs. They felt like sleeping under an electric blanket in the middle of winter, sounded like rain on a glass roof, and tasted like salty ocean spray. The words burrowed into her chest, nestling under her skin.
The moonlight twisted and dipped as it projected a silver glow through the windows, dancing along the freeway that stretched out infinitely in front of them.
As if upon a cliffside, poised to drop, Ready to tumble, the ache consumes, Butterflies flock and soon unlock, Spitting and swirling, releasing fumes.
Roots stretching like limbs relaxing, Intertwining, they hug the dirt, Against a mirror, pressing, facing, A laugh, a cry, and a cheeky smirk.
Palm against palm, breathing steady, The wind blows, we hear its song, Accepting each other, crack, we are ready, Beauty of a broken soul all pretence be gone.
Alone I sit, among the people, under dark skies, Stopping the freefall, joy in it all, we say our goodbyes.
1 7 October, 6:30pm
Swinburne’s
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