WORDLY Magazine 'Discord' Edition 3 2020 by WORDLY Magazine

wordly MAGAZINE MAGAZINE

discord Edition 3 2020

foreword

This year —as is for many others— I am having to rely more and more on online communication. We at WORDLYhave been able to get these wonderful editions of literature and art through working solely online, to be honest I am still learning how to Zoom like a pro. At times, it feels as if isolation has its giant claws around us. However, through selecting and editing pieces for ‘Discord’, there is a unity felt within all of these creative works. Working on this edition has forced me to think outside of myself, pushing away empty coffee cups and Dorito crumbs, and see what others can create when given the time and space to do so.

Discord—both online chat server and disagreements—in time of crisis provides us with an opportunity to reflect and connect. vw This edition I feel is an ode to the chaos uncertainty brings and the more we write and visualise it, the less alone we feel. I have no doubt I will return to this when I am feeling out of sorts. Stay safe and look after one another. Becky Managing Editor

Editor-in-Chief:

Editors:

Contributors:

Julie Dickson

Elisabeth Roberts Sini Salatas Jessica Wartski Jason Winn

Matt Annett Melissa Bandara Chloe Blanchard Fiona Catherine Drizzela Desouza Levi Dobbie Julia Fazzari Rebekah Griffin Anna Hayman-Arif Annie Kieh Teodora Kopic Almas Fatima Malik Daniel Matters Zach Murphy Lloyd Peter Anders Ross Venetia Slarke Abbigail Smith Friederike Wiessner Jason Winn

Managing Editor: Becky Croy

Communications Manager: Jessica Wartski

Designer:

Duyen Tran

Front cover artist: Venetia Slarke

Financial Manager: Hassaan Ahmed

Social Media Manager: Jess Ali

Sub-Editors: Grishtha Arya James Barnett Chloe Blanchard Georgie Brimer Matthew Galic Sheridan Harris Jessica Hinschen Michael Pallaris Loren Sirel Zoe Trezise

WORDLY would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land and pay respects to Elders past and present. © 2020 Deakin University Student Association Inc Reg. No. A0040625Y All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher. Opinions expressed in this publication belong to their respective authors, and it may not be the opinions of WORDLY or DUSA. Unattributed images sourced from Unsplash and Adobe Creative Cloud Assets. Want to advertise? Contact wordlymagazine@gmail.com for more information.

contents

The Final Vinyl Jason Winn

Extension Melissa Bandara`

Why the River? Zach Murphy

Seething Teodora Kopic

Shimmer Melissa Bandara

Disconnected Abbigail Smith

12 14 17 20

Deadland Anna Hayman-Arif

Remembrance Daniel Matters

Salt the Earth Julia Fazzari

Burn Rebekah Griffin

25 27 29

Satisfaction Abbigail Smith

Book Recommendations

Loss is Not a Simple Thing Fiona Catherine Puzzle Venetia Slarke

To Return Home Matt Annett

Hesitation Annie Kieh

Kintsugi Chloe Blanchard

Life of Riley Anders Ross

13 15 18 21

gravediggers Friederike Wiessner

Almas Fatima Malik Almas

28 30

Garward Winter Lloyd Peter Word Search

The Hab Levi Dobbie

The View From Outside My Window Drizzela Desouza

The Final Vinyl

Jason Winn

The disc shines under the moonlight straining in through half-shut blinds. I turn it around delicately. Beams of cold light file into the circular grooves within its surface as if they were figure skaters carving their way on slick black ice. The white circle at its centre lists off the first few songs in bolded blue. My eyes catch the one I seek the most. I smirk with satisfaction and place it down on the player. I pinch the needle arm and lift it slightly. It hovers over the first several rings stretching out from the periphery. It meets its mark and it begins to spin the vinyl. The familiar tune begins to filter through the speakers.

I turn my head up to the ceiling and begin to melt into the soft drumming. The echoing chords of the electric guitar follow. My eyes shut. I’m in a cavern, with this song resounding within its hollow. The riff bounces off rocks as pebbles tremble at my feet. Water is dropping from the stalactites above; they descend and pool. The beat causes ripples in the catchments. The air whispers into my eardrums as the singer’s ethereal voice imparts her melody to me. I drown within the chorus and begin to slumber beneath the faint interlude. It doesn’t take long for the fantasy to cease and the needle to halt close to the white centre. Music such as this has its own language. I know this dance all too well. I put the needle back in place, then reluctantly pack away the vinyl and put it in its sleeve. I arrange it back in its place, right on the shelf between Florence and the Machine’s High as Hope and Fleetwood Mac’s Mirage. I shut the lacquered top of my record player and slump onto my bed.

I wait for several long moments until my phone vibrates and casts a dim light on the wall near it. I rush over and pick it up. I smile. A gentle rapping of knuckles comes from the front door. I leave my room and open it. Robyn has arrived. She looks up at me and grins, the pale light making her almost ghostly and her freckles more prominent. We share a brief hug. I lock my front door and swat at moths that flitter about the porch’s light, trying to gain warmth on this frigid night.

‘So, are you looking forward to going to Duke’s old place?’ Robyn says eagerly. She adjusts her tartan scarf as the icy breeze causes her to shiver. We begin to walk. ‘Of course I am. It's … it’s just going to be hard to go back there,’ I respond, with sadness beginning to crackle in my voice.

‘Ever since the accident, it’s been left to ruins. It’ll be the first time we’ve seen it since then.’ With her eyes downcast, Robyn puts her hands in her coat pockets. ‘Yeah. Oh, look—there it is,’ I say as I point to the distant decaying façade.

The neon of downtown hums overhead. Vivid flashes of tangerine and emerald flicker. Skyscrapers tower above us. Silhouettes of people scamper about as shouts are thrown into the sky, falling into deafness. I kick up a discarded newspaper that clings to steel grating on the ground. It partially tears as I drive my foot through the headline. Robyn chuckles as the wind picks it up and carries it off into a volatile businessman’s face. By the time he rips it away, we have ducked into a musty alleyway.

After swiftly ensuring the coast is clear, we proceed. Chain-link fences border the charred remains of what used to be Duke’s Blues, the old record shop we used to frequent. The owner, Duke, was an intelligent man marked by a wide array of musical tastes and a signature pose he’d strike when encompassed by Hendrix’s riffs blaring on the shop’s boombox. He’d owned the shop for decades. It was run by him and his wife. Her name was Grace. It was hard not to admire them. They would often be lost within each other’s eyes between cups of strong coffee. She passed away a year ago. When Robyn and I visited him afterwards, he would shrink into himself. The fire engulfed his shop a little over a week ago now—apparently due to some faulty wiring. He was in there at the time. He had a private funeral, and the shop is still waiting to be demolished. We lost a true friend that day but gained a saint as the embers dimmed to ebony.

Robyn and I climb over the fence with ease and tiptoe around to the entrance of what used to be our favourite meeting place. We peer inside as I turn on my phone’s flashlight. It reveals a despairing sight. The creased posters from various Pink Floyd concerts Duke frequented lie amongst the scorched flakes that mottle the seared shag carpeting. The left side of Jim Morrison’s face lies entangled in the gnarled strings of Duke’s old Fender that he scarcely knew how to play correctly. A mosaic of melted vinyls blankets the left corner like toxic waste encroaching on crystal waters. I let loose a tear, and Robyn grabs my arm to comfort me. ‘Rest in peace, Duke,’ we both mutter under breaths.

Out of the corner of my eye, I notice something amongst the scattered rubble. A vinyl, untouched by the blaze. I swiftly scoop it up, and my eyes light up. It’s a plain white sleeve with letters scrawled on it. It reads: Duke’s Blues. Robyn rushes to my side, and we laugh in unison at our find. After Duke died, people began to utter that he had written and recorded his own songs. It wasn’t unheard of that Duke would compose his own songs. We often found him bellowing his own strings of lyrics. ‘I can’t believe we found this! Duke would want us to have it,’ Robyn says with the eagerness of a child at Christmas. ‘We have to go back now and listen to this,’ I tell her, as we begin to leave the old shop behind. With a final glance at old Duke’s place, we bid him and his legacy farewell.

It doesn’t take long for us to get back to my house. I immediately take out the record. I’m stunned. The heat didn’t warp it, neither did the debris in the shop mar its surface. I put it on, and it begins to spin. Robyn and I just sit and start to fall within the nostalgic sound. Duke’s voice is husky but oozes melancholy. The words speak of a love gained long ago but lost. The familiar strumming of his Fender twangs to an uneven rhythm. We close our eyes. We’re on a bluff, the wind buffeting our faces. Beyond the horizon and midnight sky, we can see them. Duke and Grace enfold each other as stars begin to fall. Robyn and I await silently for Duke’s genius to sweep us into his tides.

Loss is Not a Simple Thing Fiona Catherine

Not so gently I remember how it was when you first left. Not that moment

not the worst—

that was not gentle, you’d never choose it,

but later, as I reeled and saw the climb up out of grief would be a slow, bitter crawl, and felt the struggle to breathe once more from the surface,

yes, that one—

I cherish. In the borderlands of disharmony between the immensity of my hurt and the grandness of love, I knew I could not have loved any better.

That moment—

on a bad day

suffocates with its intensity of blistering loss, pitching thoughts into an implacable loop when it is unbearable to look your framed picture in the eye.

That moment—

on a good day

becomes this moment, then this, when I remember loving well, when your photo on the dresser helps me yield towards acceptance and is often just enough to overcome the sneaking lament.

This moment—

I remember it is possible

to be splintered from the whole yet feel my fragments pieced together with inviolable thread.

Extension

by Melissa Bandara

@melissa.bandara.design 7

Puzzle

by Venetia Slarke

@venetia.illustrations

Why the River?

Zach Murphy

Shannon sat in her tattered recliner chair and scowled at the cheesy infomercials on the television. It’d been exactly four years since the Mississippi River took her son Gus away. She looked over to the empty couch and imagined Gus sitting there, gulping down the leftover milk from a bowl of cereal. Gus was a freshman at the state university where he became a victim of toxic substances, barbaric rituals, and a desperate will to fit in.

Shannon’s fight for justice fell into the cracks of despair until her cries went completely unheard. She cursed the Kappa Sigma Fraternity for continuing to exist. She cursed the university for its disgusting negligence and its audacity to ask people for money, and she cursed the river for carrying on as if nothing had happened. When the clock hit 2 am, Shannon decided to take her pickup truck for a drive to the university campus. Her passengers were a bucket of black paint, a dirt-covered brick, and a ladder.

As Shannon slowly pulled up to the fraternity house where Gus began his final night on earth, her heart sank and her blood boiled simultaneously. She wasn’t going to turn back.

She grabbed the bucket of paint, quietly closed the truck door, and fetched the ladder from the back. She ran toward the house and hoisted the ladder against the front of the balcony. She took the paint and drenched the Kappa Sigma symbol in black. Then she wrote 'Leave before it’s too late’ boldly across the house’s siding. Her next visit was to the Dean’s office. She pulled up outside, attached a note to the brick that said ‘I’m gonna haunt you until your world knows no happiness’ and tossed it through the office window. The glass shattered like Shannon’s life when she first heard the news about Gus, and she sped off with an ear-piercing screech. She knew that nothing would ever bring her son back, but the rage that constantly flooded her mind had come to a crashing release.

After picking a shard of glass out of her boot, Shannon parked the truck under a shadow and walked across the road toward the river’s edge. The street lights flickered as if they had a secret to tell. She always wondered if Gus was alone when he wandered off. She wondered why he decided to walk toward the river, or if he even decided at all. She wondered if he slipped and stumbled into the river, or if he was just trying to soak his pain into oblivion. Shannon looked out at the river. The moon reflected upon its rolling ripples. She tossed the paint bucket into the water, along with any notion of remorse for what she’d just done. She closed her eyes as the early morning breeze whipped around her, and the cold water splashed onto her weathered face. For the first time since Gus’ death, a tiny sliver of her soul felt alive.

To Return Home The bags have been lying on his floor for almost two weeks. He’s always been slow to unpack—this has been a particularly long delay, though. Maybe because this was also his longest trip. Japan, then to the U.S., Canada, Italy, Germany. Between them, others, but not long enough stays to note. Footnotes in a larger experience.

He finally decides to deal with the bags. He begins with the large yellow duffle bag, which has continued to act as his wardrobe in the weeks since arriving home, despite the hulking—and perfectly useable—wardrobe that sits in the corner of his bedroom. He’s been living out of this bag for a long time, he realises. For the first time in years, he can hang his shirts again, and lay out his shoes in a neat row again.

He reaches into the pocket of a pair of paint-stained black pants and extracts a small bundle of cord. He shakes the cord out, and on the end of it, hanging heavier than it looks, is the key. A whisper flits about his mind, an intrusion to the calmness of his unpacking. He squeezes the key in his fist, which he presses to his lips. He’s managed to avoid thinking about this key for a long time. The story, he suddenly remembers. He wrote the story down. He shuffles through the mess of receipts and sketchbooks in his backpack and finds it—a cheap workbook, the tacky cover spray-painted black. He flips through it violently until he finds the page. April 31st

Tokyo, Japan. Tonight was strange. My hostel friends and I were celebrating the ascension of the new Emperor, which is apparently a big deal here. That part was great, but I went out for a smoke at one stage, and the old guy, Akira, followed me out. He has this sort of beautiful face, Akira—sharp, high cheekbones, a small, thin mouth. It’s regal. Royal. We were standing there together, and he sort of bumped me and said, ‘You are good man. No Nihongo, but good man.’

Matt Annett The guy hadn’t said a word to me all night, I didn’t even know he spoke this much English, and he dropped this shit in our dart break. Nihongo means Japanese, I’m pretty sure. So, I was like, ‘Uh, thanks. You’re a good man too, Akira.’ And he gave this sad smile and said, ‘No. You do not know.’ What the fuck does that mean? So, the, he pulled this thing out of his pocket, and he said, ‘You leave tomorrow, hai?’ ‘Hai.’ Then Akira started saying some stuff in Japanese, so I got out my phone and used the Google Translate voice thing—most of this is the translations from the app. ‘You will take this. This is yours.’ And he grabbed my hand, pressing this thing into it. ‘You will give this to only me, only when I say. No one else. Very important. You’ll give this to no one else.’ By this point, I was a little weirded out. ‘Why? What is it?’ He shook his head and grabbed my phone, said something into the app. It translated to: ‘That is not your burden. You must carry this until I call.’ Then, he gently removed his hand, and it was this small, beautiful key. Its black metal is intricately carved with tiny Japanese characters. I stared at it for a second, and then I went to put it in my pocket, but he grabbed my wrist and looked me dead in the eyes. ‘No,’ he said and tapped my chest. So, I put it around my neck, and he nodded and said in English, ‘Safe.’ ‘Alright, alright … so what happens if it’s not safe?’

He stared me in the eyes again, like he was looking into my damn soul, and he did probably the most ominous thing I’ve ever seen in real-life.

I’m overthinking this. Meet the guy, get rid of this thing.

He tapped his chest. ‘Dead.’ Then he tapped my chest. ‘Dead.’ He gestured to the street around us, where there were other people smoking and walking around. ‘Dead.’ And then he put out his dart and walked back inside.

Portland, Maine, U.S.A.

So, now I just have this goddamn key. What the fuck have I gotten myself into? A shudder runs through him as that whisper emerges … Be scared. Scared like he had been on that night. That’s the last mention of the key for months, almost a year. The pages in between detail his arrival in the U.S., beginning his job there, making friends. Then, the page he’s looking for. February 19th

Portland, Maine, U.S.A. This morning I opened the mailbox, and there was a letter in there. On the front, handwritten, it had my name and address in English and Japanese. I was sort of excited (I love handwritten letters, they’re personal), and as I walked back up to my room, I start thinking about Japan, and I remembered the key. I opened the letter, and sure enough, it was from Akira. His English has apparently improved, and he said that he needs ‘it’ back. He said the time is right, and that his son is coming to Portland to get it from me. 10 pm, Ocean Gateway pier, February 22nd. When he gave it to me, Akira said, ‘Only me.’ He did not say, ‘Only me, and also my son.’ (But what if he’s gotten sick? Can’t afford to come to America? What if that’s why he’s sending his son? I mean, shit, who else even knows I have the key?)

February 22nd

Went to meet the guy tonight. Parked the car on Thames St, and as I was getting out, my phone buzzed. It was a text from a private number that said: その手紙は偽物だった。 Apparently, that translated to, ‘The letter was fake.’ So, I froze, looked down the street towards the pier, back at my phone, and then I got the fuck out of there. I just got home, and someone may or may not be about to roll up to my house and fucking kill me. Fuck. But no one had. Soon after, he’d left for Europe. He’d treated that night like a bad dream, forced himself to forget it. He’d never stayed in one place more than a few weeks, which he’d told himself was about seeing more of the world, finding new experiences and places and people. He’d allowed the real reason for this sense of impermanence, this fear of being too comfortable, to become lost. Shoved into a pocket and buried deep in his luggage. That voice, that sinister whisper, was buried with it. Wrapped in layers of self-deception, until his lie triumphed completely, and he was just another starryeyed backpacker.

But here he sits, his bags half unpacked, key in hand, and that whisper bursts free of its bindings—he’s not home. He can’t hang up his shirts again or lay out his shoes in a neat row. He hangs the key around his neck. He must leave again. Or what? Dead.

Seething

by Teodora Kopic

@kopicdesign

Hesitation

Annie Kieh

Friend or foe, It makes no difference. I never know How to bridge the distance. No matter how much You have earned my trust, I still flinch At the slightest touch.

I can’t let go. I can’t move on. My hesitation grows. I can’t be strong.

Even the worthy can never get near. Bound by these walls, I’m drowning in fear.

Shimmer

by Melissa Bandara

@melissa.bandara.design

“kintsugi”

you like to raise your screams

Chloe Blanchard

to a certain pitch when you

throw our old ornate plates crumbling and cracked

given to us by your grandmother at me across the tiny room

i don’t respond or retaliate

because i know it’s not worth

not anymore

having another fight over

or calling the police again

so instead i perform

kintsugi

gold brush strokes illuminate

the broken pieces of china where hairline fractures match

like beams of sunshine

the marks that run across my arms

and down along my busted fingers

they create new shapes with

the way their sections blend

an oval meets a diamond to reveal

together

prism of light

new meanings beside each other

in this haven away from you

i spend my days making wonders

that take residence where once

our family photos hung with grace

and the gamut of your torture

finally disappears after all these years

the walls don’t sag anymore

The Deakin Writers Club is for those who love to read, write, and create.

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Disconnected

by Abbigail Smith

@wintersblossoms

Life of Riley Anders Ross

The jackals are at the door again. You can hear them, scratching on the broken wire of the screen, jealous faces baying at the moon as they fall over themselves across the porch. They want blood, this time. ‘Go away, wretched dogs,’ you say to them, loading your rifle, a shell in your mouth. ‘I’ll show those mongrels to come around here.’ The chamber snaps shut.

A couple of steps forward. The plastic blind screams open. The sound of the rifle’s hammer. But there’s nothing outside.

You don’t bother locking the shack up; there is little point sparing a condemned railroad property. Frank will clear up the mess, anyway, you reason. The truck outside looks just about how you left it, jade-green and rusting. You palm your rifle and duffle bag in the torn passenger’s seat and climb in. After twelve miles going fifteen, most of it behind cautious school buses and probing snowplows, you leave the highway and pull into the gas station, a diner beside it. ‘Do you have a phone?’ you ask the sea of hunched backs and alpine hats sipping percolator coffee at the counter. They reply with a grumbled moan. ‘In the corner.’ The elderly waitress points to a wooden phone box beneath a neon clock.

You feed the machine the vestiges of your back pocket, about a quarter, and punch in the number. Dial tone. Buzzing. Click. You’ve reached the phone of … You don’t allow the automated message to reach Frank’s disjointed statement of his name before the beep. You ring off and realize the phone proffers no refund. 'What are you lookin’ at, buddy?’ A rail of a man with sallow features is standing about a foot away from you.

‘You gonna make another call or what?’ He stretches a gnarled finger to the black plastic receiver you are still holding.

‘Because if you are—’ You pass it to him with a heaviness that causes him to stagger backwards a little as you rush out of the diner. You fumble for your keys, dropping them with a jangle onto the concrete forecourt of the gas station. ‘Bitch,’ you intone, bending on one knee to pick them up. They scratch the barrel of the truck’s lock and stick to the left when you turn them, eventually letting you open the steel door. Inside the cabin is the smell of burnt clutch and fumes. You don’t fasten your lap belt or see the two squad cars coming in for gas as you rejoin the highway.

A few miles down the road, you notice the snow has retreated behind thick black clouds pregnant with the worst rain of the season. Some drivers have pulled to the side of the highway to wait it out but you change up and speed past them. The Ford slews across two lanes with the howling wind that buffets at its sides. You pull the wheel with both hands to right it, but it is too late. A Caterpillar bulldozer parked at the side of the road catches the front right fender of the F-150, shearing away some of the paint, revealing more rust.

THE JACKALS ARE COMING THE JAC The truck continues sliding down the gully to the side of the highway. You press all your weight into the brake pedal, almost standing in the tilted cabin. Finally, it halts beside a boat pontoon and abandoned campground.

You let the motor idle as you gather your thoughts, checking you haven’t broken anything in the foregoing drama beyond a sweat. Feet, fingers, and neck all seem to move, but the truck gives off a fatal cough with a judder. It’s had it, you decide, pulling the key out from the barrel and throwing it into the woods. In the action (not that you saw it), your supply of hooch has cascaded all over the footwell. The duffle bag was open. Amongst the broken glass, you pick up one of the few bottles of Crown Royal that looks pretty good, along with your rifle and box of shells. You then head into the pine forest over the river.

Although cold to the bone, the crossing is easy as you are quite high up in the mountains still. Even so, you wish you hadn’t given up smoking so soon. ‘Christ,’ you mutter into your denim sleeve as the current floods your boot. You could do with a Red. Sitting on the other side of the bank, sheltering underneath an ancient pine, you watch the blue and red of the squad cars, now numbering four, pass by on the highway.

‘Fools!’ You raise the amber bottle to toast them. ‘If only you knew.’ Jackals, the doleful creatures, they savour the taste of blood from a big target. But now, stalking the county line, do they realize you’re one man? It’s a small crime that shakes the city. The whisky is sweet—the peach one, always the peach one survives—but warms against the cold. Having voided your boot of its damp bath, you steel yourself to keep going. ‘It’s now or never.’

The wake of water that has formed by decades of logging and latterly daytrippers is sodden so much that you keep off it, walking in the knee-high grass instead. At least there’s no more river in here, you reason, slowly crossing through the plantation. It’s a lonely road to freedom, after all, Dad would say. There he would be, in the kitchen at home. A Red dangling from his lip, the pack rolled under his cotton sleeve, matchstick dancing between thumb and forefinger, with a Sam Cooke record spinning behind him when he would tell you a day spent inside Angola is freer than doing what men like us have to do outside to get by.

About five miles in, you reach the sheer white of Lake Charlotte, and, farther beyond, the freedom of the border. The trees have changed—from pines to maples—and an eagle wheels around the tops. You drop your whisky bottle, now empty. You wield your rifle. You take one last look into the green expanse of woodlice and sprites. You run. . . . You tried to.

While you were draining the peach whisky, you didn’t hear the crunching snow underneath state trooper boots. When you tore out of the highway gas station diner, you didn’t notice your face was on the TV news. You didn’t think the thin man was dialing America’s Most Wanted.

But you half-looked over your shoulder in the direction where you swore you heard a shortwave crackle. You felt the .22 casing. Three of them hit your knees. Exploding in a sea of flesh and blood as the whirr of chopper blades filled your ears.

You reach for your rifle one last time, crawling out onto the frozen lake. A blizzard has come. The snow reduces visibility to maybe ten feet. ‘One hundred yards to go,’ you mutter, drawing the sight up level with your left eye. But it locks up. The barrel has frozen. The jackals want blood this time.

Deadland He who was living is now dead. We who were living are now dying T.S Eliot

Anna Hayman-Arif

He knew there were a heap of broken images, before they broke— April was the cruellest month.

The seconds that were absorbed into the blurry

static that buzzes constantly,

inside and out are lost.

Minutes that seep into a mass consciousness of fear slip away, one by one

We are wound tighter than is bearable— our springs are sprung, our switches are all

The paradox is here, paused yet frantic— silent yet screaming.

This Waste-d Land, Eliot, T S 1922, The Waste Land, Poetry Foundation, retrieved 30th May, <https://www.poetryfoundation.org/ poems/47311/the-waste-land>

this handful of dust, is ours no more.

flipped.

gravediggers

Friederike Wiessner

i scream into the pillow you gave me (you were very sure i was in need) my teeth are gnawing on soft fabric just as the pangs of instant guilt sink

their teeth into my nape

my throat is still sore this morning screams, an exhumation of things past and buried not rotten enough to vanish

just yet

iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m sorry you get to witness this overturning of graves my incomplete funeral speeches and haunted moments when the fear creeps back up my spine and into

the insides of my thighs

you do, however, carry a shovel without knowing you do i warn you off certain patches of land but this goes against your integrity and grain

oh come on, dig it in

it is about timeâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;

by now, you should know the pallid danger signs.

Remembrance

Daniel Matters

A stage well-lit with rainbow glass. Shadows in congregation. A performer telling the crowd exactly what they want to hear. His lordly voice moves some to tears, but everyone’s eyes are fixed instead to the real star of the show. A crown of yellow carnations, petals decaying in the autumn air, placed atop her head. A symbol of the crowd’s admiration and love. It’s the reason they all came today. To give reverence. To see her. To talk. They came because they need to be here. They all want one last glimpse. Not me, though. I would rather be neck-deep in quicksand. I don’t hate my grandmother, but I can’t wait for her funeral to be over. To be far away from the reason she used to protect me.

Continuing his performance, the priest raises his hands in an imperious gesture. An evocation to the powers that be. An echo of hope and despair, soft and fleeting. I have no desire to play along, but my mother’s hand grips mine like a vice. I mouth the words and make the gestures. The ties of family tugging on me.

Someone is called up to the dais as the priest makes room for another to preach. I shiver at the name. Instinctively, I look for the exit doors and their glow of freedom. Yet as I scan the room, I catch a glimpse of my mother’s face beside me. Her veil of stoic mourning starting to crack, her fingers locking harder around mine. Beyond her ashen eyes, I can see her reliving the hurt. The abusive games. The physical torment. The moment when he left. I swallow my own fear. Both of us need to be brave.

A mass of well-tailored cloth climbs the steps. A phantom floating before my vision. His suit is a deep royal blue, unlike the black sea before him. He moves his aged frame with a briskness that only I seem to notice. A child-like glee hidden behind a rehearsed mask of sorrow.

My father stands tall and proud as he turns to face the church. His cold eyes gaze throughout the room like those of a prison warden. For a moment, he stops and focuses on our pew. My mother turns her face aside, away from the echoes of past pain. My legs, quaking with self-preservation, want to pick me up and run. Run back to the childhood cupboard where I used to hide. But then I feel the tremors in my mother’s hand. Straightening my back, I stare right at my father with all the stubborn confidence I have. My father’s brow meets his nose and twists like a demon, but the rest of him remains composed. I swear he is trying to set me alight as he begins his monologue.

His eulogy is a far better piece of theatre than that of the priest. A cherry-picked history of a caring woman who did everything she could to keep her family together. A mother who raised her son to be the man he is today and accepted him despite his faults. A soul full of forgiveness and understanding. I want to interject, but instead, I bite my tongue. My father has chosen to omit all the times my grandmother had condemned him for tearing his family apart. All the times she proclaimed he wasn’t the son she had raised. I still remember how her arms felt around me as she shielded me from his rage. I remember how she supported my mother through the divorce. I remember the warmth of my grandmother’s hand as I testified against him at the custody hearing. Her soul had indeed been full of forgiveness and understanding, just not for her son.

This eulogy is not a goodbye. It is a triumph. My father’s final words ring like the gloat of a general over their vanquished enemy. ‘I loved you.’ He does not move to see his mother lying in eternal rest. He does not even turn his head to steal one final glimpse of her face. Instead, my father stands there, staring out above the crowd. An actor pausing dramatically before he exits the stage. The muffled sobs and respectful silence are a standing ovation for his finest performance. ***

I let the breeze numb my nerves as I stand before the open grave. The mournful cast of strangers is now rearranged in a wide circle to watch the climax of the show. The final litany of praise and remembrance. My mother and I are positioned with the masses. Our final view of my grandmother a snapshot too blurry to keep. Coats wave goodbye in the wind. The unspoken dirge of the crowd as we watch the curtains fall. Those who seek a final tribute claim their right to a rose of golden sunlight. Each flower taken from a basket and cast into the grave. I feel my hand pulled toward the yellow roses as my mother moves forward. A final bouquet of gratitude for the woman who helped her. But a single step is all my mother takes. My father’s shadow looms in unspoken ownership over the last bundle of flowers.

My mother releases a guarded breath, her goodbye to my grandmother escaping as wisps of steam. She turns us around, and we begin to leave. It’s only with her face cast away from my father that the tears begin to flow. She makes no noise as she weeps, but I can feel her quivering. I know she wants to do more, to pay the proper respect the leading lady deserves. Still, my mother is not yet ready to face her tormentor.

I don’t cry, not at first. Instead, I squeeze my mother’s hand tight, promising to return. I head back towards the grave. With each step, my stomach twists against me, realisation growing within of where I’m going. My mind is two steps behind, nightmares screeching inside my head like warped cassettes replaying old fears. But neither of them can settle my defiant heart. When I stop, I find myself before my father. For a long moment, we stare at each other, wordless and breathless. His peppery complexion seems alien. His face hollow like a dead tree. Even his eyes, though full of contempt, appear dim and lost. Before me is not some dark memory but rather a worn statue of a man. As I bend down to collect the last of the flowers from the basket, my father shifts uncomfortably. Despite the remaining crowd, he unleashes a torrent laying claim to my insolence. How dare I take his flowers. How dare I disrespect him. How dare I walk away. Though I have rehearsed this moment of defiance in my head thousands of times and practiced every verse I want to say, I never acknowledge my father’s words. I approach the closed coffin. Handfuls of dirt and yellow petals litter its polished surface. The final gifts of the parting crowd. Looking up, I find my mother staring at me with shock and awe. The warmth of my tears running down my face. I touch the heads of the roses to my lips. Within their bloom, the farewell of my grandmother’s most thankful admirers. I whisper the final words we want to say and let the flowers fall into the earth. ‘We love you.’

Almas Fatima Malik

by Almas

@afmimpressions

Salt the Earth

Julia Fazzari

Salt the Earth, leave the land for dead. Denounce the false claim you hold

over the soil that was never yours. Salt the Earth, cut the roots.

The land belonged to us. We

were the land. We breathed before life learnt how to walk over us.

Salt the Earth, let our labours rot.

Heathens cry for the blooms, the fruits: life that they never nurtured.

Salt the Earth, chase the brutes away.

Demolish the structures made of metal and dust and stone. You stole from the pollinators.

Salt the Earth, we will reclaim our realm and restore it.

Lloyd Peter

I have been claimed by the Winter,

I speak as the Winter approaches,

And left in the desert of snow;

As Autumn bares naked the trees,

My tears the redeeming waters,

But now I have known of the Summer

Unwept, the graves and the sorrow.

And will make with the Winter my peace.

The Winter has held to my lips

I write as the darkness approaches,

The draught of Stygian cold,

The air is now cold on my skin,

And locked in their moorings the ships

But the path through the night and the sadness

That bear off the pain in their hold.

Is my path and the path of my kin.

Winter wrought claws of iron

My path, the path of the peaceful,

That caught in the heart and throat;

Who weathers the storms deep within.

Jaws that once laid me open,

My path, the path of the equal,

Wolves to gorge on my hope.

Who judges not, Pauper or King.

Burn Five million stars.

That is how many tiny, glowing dots poke through the atmosphere, burning above me as I lay still on the grass, listening to the night. Beside me, Pete leans back on his palms, cigarette between his teeth as he looks up at the sky. I think he feels the same way about it that I do—overwhelmed and wonderous, scared and small. We stay like that for a while, contemplating fate. I watch the smoke from his cigarette as it curls and spirals into the sky. I find myself wondering what it would be like to float away into the darkness when his voice pulls me back to earth. ‘Come on,’ he says. ‘We should get going.’

We pick ourselves up off the grass and dust off our jeans. In the distance, the lights of our town sparkle on the horizon, calling us home.

Rebekah Griffin Five years is a long time to get over something, but I feel like it will take me five lifetimes to stop missing my mother – as if I ever could. I say nothing and fold my hands together in my lap.

I need to learn to be present instead of letting my mind wander all the time. My mother used to ask me where I was when I spaced out, and I would tell her stories about astral projecting to other countries to make her wheeze a raspy laugh. Pete never asks me what I’m thinking about because he already knows the answer.

We pull into the carpark of the local pub. From inside, I can hear the typical country ruckus of a Saturday night. The jukebox is playing some song, a drunk guy is singing, teenagers—too young to be drinking—are laughing. I stand in the gravel and wait as Pete lights another cigarette.

As I climb into his truck, I watch him flick the cigarette onto the ground. I hate it when he does that, but then, I am guilty of it too. I shake my head when he offers me one—it has been years since I smoked, but he always offers. I think he would feel better if I took one, but tonight is not the night.

The sound of the paper sizzling down as he inhales echoes in my brain. The raw thirst I feel at the back of my throat when I smell that familiar scent reminds me of my mother. I imagine her, lifting a cigarette to her mouth as she smiles at me, her perfectly manicured fingers stained yellow. For a moment, she is no longer clouded by the blur of memory, and the reality of her absence is clear in my mind.

I smirk as I buckle my seatbelt. I secretly love it when he calls me that.

His laugh is spitting. His laugh is a slap. His laugh is innocent, but it’s as if the world has suddenly tilted on its axis.

The Emphysema shattered us. The new lungs gave us hope. Instead, in a twist of irony, all that is left of her is ash.

‘Please, stop,’ I say. His mouth is agape. I never stand up for myself. For him. For anything. I try to stand firm, but my hands are still shaking, and a sob bursts out of my mouth.

‘I don’t know, Ace.’ He laughs as he lights up. ‘I think you’re getting boring.’

‘Whatever.’ I roll my eyes. He slides into the driver’s side and revs the engine. I know he is joking but, he’s probably not wrong. It’s been five years since my mother’s failed lung transplant. The doctors attempted to replace them as they betrayed her body, eating themselves from the inside out.

‘You okay, Ace?’ I feel his hand on mine.

I shake my head, laughing as my voice replies , ‘Yes,’ but my body tells him the truth. ‘Let’s go get a beer’ I don’t want to go; I want to lay back down on that grass and feel my body turn into stardust, but I’m too tired to argue. I know he is trying to distract me from my grief.

Pete coughs. I make a face, and he laughs at me.

I don’t know if it’s the gust of wind that blows the smoke into my face or years of putting up with his annoying way of taking care of me and disregarding himself, but something inside of me snaps, and I rip the cigarette out of Pete’s mouth.

I cry, and he hugs me.

Above us, the stars keep burning.

Wordsearch

Satisfaction

by Abbigail Smith

@wintersblossoms

THE HAB

Western Australian Correctional Correspondence Program (WACCP), Melville, W.A

The following correspondence has been edited for privacy and compliance as deemed neccassary by the Western Australian Prison Board - ref# 1851

Hello Troy ¹ ,

Thank you for your reply.

Though I spent many years at sea as a young man, I have not read the novel, and sadly, it is not in the prison’s library. I wanted to be able to help you with your book report, so I asked if anyone in L-block had read it. No one has, but Levi ² mentioned a band who recorded an album based on the book. I borrowed the CD and listened to it during free time. Free time is sixty minutes, so I could only listen once. It isn’t to my tastes. I wrote down the lyrics as best I could and have summarised each track. I’ve included my own experience on fishing vessels where possible, though keep reading the book just in case. Track One

The album starts with a nameless character. We’ll call him Ishmael because that’s what the singer screams in track five.

Ishmael is being driven mad and fears for his life. He insists that ‘no man of flesh’ would ever be able to stop him, which implies his fear is something that’s not a man. He says the fight with the fish will be to the death. Fish are trying to kill Ishmael, but this is likely a metaphor. Consider researching the author and if he was inclined to drink. See lyrics: The fight for this fish is a fight to the death ³

Track Two

Ishmael joins a ship in search of a lost whale. Someone is referred to as a ‘Hab’, apparently, the person who lost the whale in the first place. ‘Hab’ might have been a title or position of power on the ship, though not one I’m familiar with. The Hab talks of his reverence of a nearby ocean and its magic, which attracts all men. Thirteen years ago, something happened to the Hab, and now his leg is rotten or atrophied and is the ‘colour of ivy’, and his whale is gone.

Track Three The Hab and Ishmael meet a man named Key Keg in Nantucket. People think Key Keg is a savage, possibly because he carries a harpoon. The lyrics call it ‘Grungir’, which I believe was the spear of Odin, but if the savage uses it to fish, it is technically a harpoon. Precision of Grungir

Track Four

Spear of the Norse God Odin ⁴

Ishmael, the Hab, and Key Keg with Grungir set out to hunt the fish (singular) or fish (plural), which threaten Ishmael’s life. They are soon caught in lava.

The lyrics mention volcanic eruptions in Iceland, something that Brent ⁵ says happened in the 1970s. This places the album’s novel in the postmodernist period. Track Five

The Hab remains untouched by the lava of the 70s but swears to get revenge on the volcano, until ‘she spills her black blood’, likely meaning igneous rock. The implication is that the volcano contributed to the Hab losing his whale. He takes a huge breath and spits it at the volcano, which has a ‘vast head, body and tail’. Next, a ‘straight-line is cast’, which continues the fishing metaphor, though technically fishing vessels use slacklines made of polyvinylidene fluoride. Track Six

The ship is destroyed, and everyone is bleeding in the water. The smell of their blood attracts regular/lava sharks, the latter revealing this to be a work of fiction. Ishamael fears his watery grave but is saved along with Key Keg and Grungir by a mermaid. The Hab, suspicious of the mermaid and its role in the stealing of his whale, perishes. The Fiji mermaid

⁴ See footnote three, page one ⁵ Confidential ⁶ See footnote four

Western Australian Correctional Correspondence Program (WACCP), Melville, W.A

Levi Dobbie

Track Seven The surviving men call upon God, likely meaning Odin, who shows them a woman who births a giant Nephilim. A ship arrives, and everyone, including the Nephilim, sails into the weather, away from the sharks and volcano. This song reminds the reader that God and/or Odin are all-powerful, which is essential exposition. See track eight. Track Eight

With God watching, the men and the Nephilim and the mermaid start to boil the water that the fish lives in. The fish appears and spews fire at them. This destroys their boat. The fish is resistant to boiling water because it is a metaphor for Satan who takes the form of a hydra: Boiling the water where the hydras were crawling ⁷

Everyone but Ishmael is drowned and burned. Ishmael floats to safety on a coffin made by Mr Keg. Track Nine

Everyone sinks deeper and deeper ‘into the sea’.

From my memory of maps, I think this is incorrect as the nearest sea to Nantucket is the North Atlantic, which is not a sea but an ocean.

It’s quiet and lonely at the bottom of the sea/ocean, and everyone sinks like ‘buckets of lead’. The lyrics reveal that the fish was never to be defeated: Battle is she ⁸ Not for defeat

All the characters are dead except for Ishmael, who has already paddled back to Nantucket. The ship, which set sail in track seven, left from the area which is today known as Nantucket Children’s beach: Childfriendly sandy beach and park ⁹ (I was permitted to look up the island as part of my geography ¹⁰ assignment). ⁷ See footnote six ⁸ Removed – Possible negative influences/connotations ⁹ Non-approved words redacted WACCP ¹⁰ Confidential

Ishmael, paddling as the crow flies from the middle of the North Atlantic Sea toward Nantucket, would have arrived at Siasconset on the southeastern shoulder of the island. From here, he may have returned to Nantucket (the city) by way of the Milestone road bus leaving Siasconset.

If the bus route was not established in the era of 1973 in which the album and novel take place, he may have walked, which would have taken two hours and thirty eight minutes for a total of 7.9 miles. This is all conjecture as we never learn what happens to Ishmael, but this is, to me, the most likely sequence of events he would have taken in those days. Track Ten - Instrumental

This track is purely instrumental. To me, it’s a melancholic reflection of how far the characters travelled and their battle with nature, God, the devil-hydra, and the volcano/ocean. The Hab never found his whale, but searching for it led to him being killed by sharks. This could be another metaphor for functional alcoholism. It sounds like the sort of thing that would play over the closing credits if the album’s novel was a film. In the film, the camera would pan across the volcano, which has cooled and is covered in igneous rock, and the instrumental would play with all the reverb you’d expect from something set in the same era as Electric Warrior by T. Rex. I only ever saw one whale during my years on fishing vessels, and it was a white beluga. Keep writing!

Noah Merrick ==============

DIRECT REPLIES C/O WACCP@GMAIL.COM ¹² ¹¹ Confidential ¹² REMOVED – Corresepondence to WACCP@GMAIL.COM to be sent c/o the ‘Write a prisoner’ program

Isolation Book Recommendations Stephanie Adamopoulos recommends: The Lunar Chronicles series by Marissa Meyer. I absolutely loved these retellings of fairy tales in a modern Earth, including Cinderella, Rapunzel, Snow White, and Red Riding Hood. Each book focuses on one fairy tale, but they are all connected to one massive story of love, revolution, and war. Jess Ali recommends: Cherry Beach by Laura McPhee-Browne. Browne is a Melbourne author, and she has crafted a beautiful, vibrant novel about two young women—Hetty and Ness— who move from Melbourne to Toronto. It focuses on themes of friendship and selfdiscovery, following their stories as they split apart and twine back together again. Such breathtaking and sharp prose. Becky Croy recommends: Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges. It’s a collection of short stories, all with philosophical ponderings about life and the universe. A particular favourite is ‘The Library of Babel’ in which the library has an infinite number of books and infinite potential knowledge. Although Borges can be quite a challenge to read at times—he loves to pack in as much information as possible into each story—you are left with someone very interesting questions and explorations of philosophical ideas. Definitely a great distraction read! Daniel Matters recommends: On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King. A classic book on writing that is excellent for beginning writers and old hats. A wonderful assortment of advice as well as an entertaining personal retelling of Stephen King’s life. Every time I go back to it, it makes me laugh, feel sad, and then it gives me a kick up the backside to put words on my own page. Jessica Wartski recommends: Seeing Voices by Oliver Sacks. It’s easily the most eye-opening thing I’ve come across on the cost of being deaf in our society (and how the deaf community is rallying against that cost!). The book goes from asking you to imagine how one forms language and contextualises the world when they’ve never been able to experience language through sound, to teaching a recent history of the treatment, othering, and education of the deaf. By the end, I was ready to learn sign, and it’s given me a greater appreciation and understanding of what language is and why we need it. Jason Winn recommends: Against Nature by Joris-Karl Huysmans. It’s a French classic that has no plot besides a single neurotic French Aristocrat who surrounds himself with decadence while loathing humankind. It was a heavy inspiration for The Picture of Dorian Gray and, as the name suggests, broke off from Naturalism and became Symbolist literature. While it can be hard to digest with the character’s pursuit of aesthetics, it’s a great commentary on the pretensions of nineteenth-century French Bourgeois.

RUN BY STUDENTS, FOR STUDENTS

The View Outside My Window Drizzella Desouzza Over the last few weeks, I have been writing in an old white book. The white pages now filled with crawled writing and a common nucleus— the window, my window. I wrote about past incidents, glorious awkward moments. For instance, when I acted as a TV anchor and hosted talk shows with stray animals or spoke to objects.

As I gazed at the window, I realised that the wooden and glass square box served as several frames that kept changing. It began with the bright light blending with the dark sky, birds flying around accompanied by their chirps and whistles. The rays of the light playing hide and seek during the autumn days followed by the dramatic sunsets. The birds flying towards another land was an indication that the sky was getting covered with a blanket of grey and black. There are few homes and a small pathway outside the window. At the end of the frame stands a giant tree which is now bare.

Every now and then, I stared into this world through my window. The glass slowly turned into a device that pushed me to think deeper and deeper. It was surreal to watch the trees transition from red, yellow, and orange, and then lose every piece of their garment. Back home, I swept dried leaves and collected them under a tree. The season of autumn was another season. The thought of home was always lingering in the air.

I looked at the glass frame and listened to the autumn wind. The thumps from the branches were the few sounds besides my feet moving from one room to another. A part of me lived on this vibrant unknown land, while the other half dwelled in a place I called home. As I watched the few pink flowers outside my window, I noticed questions flying around; some questions looked back at me while the others moved away. I tried to shift my attention, but my eyes were transfixed to, where do I belong?

I was around eighteen when I read a novel centred around estrangement, identity, and displacement. The novel was a recommended text as part of the six-month introduction to literature—The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri. I remember fragments of Lahiri's character, Anjali, moving from India to the USA after an arranged marriage. It is a faint memory where Anjali combines Rice Krispies with chopped red onions, lime juice, thin-sliced chillies and eats this concoction during her pregnancy. A favoured snack sold on the streets of India. Lahiri’s description of this humble snack was striking. When I think of this descriptive text, it brings back the memories of street food and the tangy flavours that filled the air. However, I could never relate to the glorious description by Lahiri of the familiar land, even after displacement.

I was born in Dubai but grew up in Mumbai—a densely populated city in India. My cultural roots go back to Goa; a state in India which was ruled by the Portuguese. This amalgamation is incomplete without mentioning that I was raised as a Roman Catholic: a minority in a country that strives on religion, mainly Hinduism. I grew in a surrounding where people experienced similar complexities; all tied together with this identical string.

The air around was always diverse. I woke up to the sounds of bells; sometimes by the blow of conch shells carried by the wind. One could find diversity in many forms: in the house next door, among the people surrounding the

vegetable cart, in the faces encountered during train journeys, or simply between the people with whom you brushed shoulders on the crowded streets.

The first language I spoke was English, followed by my mother tongue Konkani. But I fail to recollect if this was the order or the other way around. I scribbled English as my mother tongue in the school calendar. But I was always reminded that it was Konkani. I often found myself tangled in the web of, where do I belong? Identity crisis had crawled in from childhood. The sound of varied diction and dialect often resembled another recipe to prepare Indian curry. Several spices combined together, slowly roasting and blending with the oil. The aroma from the spices strong enough to linger in the house. For me, this aroma lasted for a short time. It was instant gratification. Similar to the experience consumerism brings to our lives. Every time I found myself getting tangled in the complexity of identity and culture, I sipped the humble chai standing on the crowded streets of Mumbai and stared at the moving world. A way of accepting and embracing them all. Never did I realise this melange would influence my writing. I don’t remember picking up a book besides the wordy English textbooks during childhood. Despite the not-so vibrant illustrations, I always found solace in reading them. The newspaper was another source that introduced me to the world of words. When I started writing during my late teens, I saw a voice buried under the use of heavy adjectives. But I continued living a life of accepting the present and looking at the past as the past.

As I wrote, I found it difficult to imagine a world of fantasy. I read a few books from this genre. Also, a few literary texts during my six months literature course. ‘Few’ recurring in the above sentences is an indication of my limited literary knowledge. But I was always making mental notes. However, when I wrote, I saw myself leaning to the past and present. But why not fiction? This question has often intrigued me. I wrote a few fiction short stories and kept bringing ‘I’ in every character. A part of me formed the base of these characters. All my characters and settings were influenced by identity. I could not hide behind them. My voice was overpowering; it wanted to peel off the mask and reveal itself, always.

This was the beginning of borrowing fragments from my surroundings. It was amusing to watch myself go back and forth to the places I liked and disliked. When I write, I have often found myself stepping into this room, where religion, culture, conservative thinking, traditions, and city-life all transform into people. Each of them encouraging me to elucidate my thoughts. I have also visualised all the unspoken words gazing back. At the same time, there is absolute silence in the room. There is a constant conflict: the act of viewing the land as an outsider or clothing myself with all the intricacies. This fight within drives me to think of the people around who accepted displacement and identity crisis in a land they called their own. As I have submerged myself in the sea of questions, a part of me is scared of the dark blue waters. The other half is reminding me of the light above the waters. It tells me that I have a choice. It reminds me that through displacement I have become the frames within the frames. I have become the window. My voice, like the window, has the power to allow the light to pass through and show the changing landscapes despite the intricacies of life.

Hassaan Ahmed Jess Ali Matt Annett Grishtha Arya Melissa Bandara James Barnett Chloe Blanchard Georgie Brimer Fiona Catherine Becky Croy Drizzela Desouza Julie Dickson Levi Dobbie Julia Fazzari Matthew Galic Rebekah Griffin Sheridan Harris Anna Hayman-Arif Jessica Hinschen Annie Kieh Teodora Kopic Almas Fatima Malik Daniel Matters Zach Murphy Michael Pallaris Lloyd Peter Elisabeth Roberts Anders Ross Sini Salatas Loren Sirel Venetia Slarke Abbigail Smith Duyen Tran Zoe Trezise Jessica Wartski Friederike Wiessner Jason Winn