WORDLY Magazine 'Untitled' Edition 2014 by WORDLY Magazine

WORDLY

IT DOESN’T END HERE...

contents

keep connected over the uni holidays by following wordly online. www.facebook.com/wordlymagazine www.twitter.com/wordlymagazine www.wordlypress.wordpress.com

WORDLY is funded by DUSA.

SUBMIT TO WORDLY submissions for the o’week edition of wordly close january 26th 2015. submit your articles, stories, poems and artwork to deakinwriters@gmail.com

JOIN THE

WORDLY TEAM are you a writer or editor looking for experience? email deakinwriters@gmail.com to express your interest in being on the team in 2015.

editors Hayley Elliott-Ryan Tom Greenwell Tom Bensley Jack Kirne Jessica Harvie Andrew Roberts Bonnee Crawford Luke Peverelle Lauren Hawkins Paddy Amarant Katherine Back Claudia Sensi Contugi Laura Soding design/layout Daniel Watts cover art Sam Lethborg

Editorial

How We Got Here

Zombie Love Stories

A Rom-Com To Solve All Your Problems

Vertigo

The Survivor Narrative

Oranges

Phase IV

Letter Of Goodbye

Cabin

Mediation

#ALSicebucketchallenge

Modern Black

© 2014 Deakin University Student Association 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.

in order of appearance Haunter: Tom G Alakazam: Jack Smeargle: Daniel Totodile: Paddy Mr Mime: Tom B Charmander: Laura Suicune: Katherine Lapras: Claudia Moltres: Bonnee Meowth: Lauren Clefairy: Hayley Pidgeot: Jessica Spheal: Luke Bulbasaur: Andrew

welcome to wordly And lo, we approach the end of the second year (October through December being throw-away-months, anyway) since WORDLY Magazine was born in phoenix-ian fashion from the ashes of the (Cross)fire. But there might just be enough time for this one last edition before we wave 2014 goodbye. I think it’s safe to say it’s been a tough one. From losing beloved entertainers to the reignition of wars, old and new, and[*insert biting political commentary here*], there’s some not so nice things going on in the world at the moment. Luke Peverelle has written us a piece tapping into those vibes. But don’t let the crushing existential despair of reality get you too down, as Blair Duncan gives us a romantic comedy recommendation to suit any occasion, while Paddy Amarant tackles mindless husks going through predictable motions of a different kind in his analysis of zombie films. Kyah Horrock has also gone done another retro movie review (it certainly is a Kyah retro movie review). We’ve got Jessica Harvie digging further into what the deal is with all those people dumping buckets of ice water on themselves in socialmedia. Phoebe Nargorcka-Smith reminds us that not all disabilities are outwardly visible, and that not all people affected fit neatly into the narratives we sometimes expect of them. Jack Kirne and Jaquim Duggan share some powerful poetry. Claudia Sensi Contugi describes an enchanting scene of Florence’s Ponte Vecchio at night, and Alison Evans tells us a tragic story of a grandparent aging. Upon first hearing that someone was thinking of naming a writing magazine for Deakin University ‘WORDLY’ I—naturally—replied with hopes that their resulting beating hadn’t been too severe (just enough to teach them the error of their ways, but not enough to deny them the chance to set their lives back on a redemptive path from their obvious failures), but I have to admit that it has grown on me a little, since then (free advertising from typos of the uni’s official tagline hasn’t hurt). In that time, the group of talented individuals working on this here magazine has ballooned, but we’ve also had to say goodbye to some compatriots along the way, as people slide into more supportive roles and a new breed of super-editors rise to take their place. Our own philosopher king, Tom Greenwell, bids us farewell in his Letter of Goodbye. But while he may be gone from our fair city he will remain in our minds and hearts—and pages.

luke peverelle shows us how far we’ve really gone as a species.

‘I wish you wouldn’t do it,’ she sighed. He looked up from the stone slab, brows furrowing in frustration. ‘Seriously? You’re having doubts now?’ ‘Not doubts, just ... I dunno. Are you sure there isn’t another way?’ He blew his cheeks out, put his instrument down and sat down beside her. ‘OK, look. Think back. How did it all start?’ She tilted her head, letting her mind drift back the last few years or so. ‘Well, people were angry, and tired—mostly tired. So they started arguing.’ ‘Right, right. And what did they argue about?’ ‘Religion. Politics. War. The environment. Racism. Classism. Homophobia. Poverty. Feminism. The Ebola virus.’ ‘Keep going.’ She frowned. ‘Well, the arguing just kept going and going. Eventually people realised that they’d been arguing for so long they were at war. So they started fighting instead of arguing.’ ‘Fighting with ... ?’ ‘Guns. Bombs. IEDs. Knives. Predator drones. The sharpened end of a toothbrush. Nerve gas, after the bombing in Washington, D.C. Only a couple of people used books. Probably a good thing that they did, too.’ ‘Correct. And what did this lead to?’ ‘Depopulation. Famine. Radioactive fallout. Dictatorships. Arcologies. Cancellation of the Olympics. Doomsday soothsayers. Survival rations. Survival.’ ‘You’re damned right, by hell. So humanity started off as ... ?’ ‘Conquerors. Heroes. Pioneers. Liberators. Scientists. Explorers. Firebrands. Revolutionaries. Kings Demonstrators. Dreamers.’ ‘And now what are they?’ She turned to look at him. ‘You mean what are we?’ ‘And there’s where you fail. Every time we get to this point and then you fail.’ He tutted. ‘I know.’ ‘It’s because you’re human that you fail, you know.’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘Yeah.’ He stood up, and walked back to the slab. He picked up the knife. ‘So now you get it? You understand why I’ve got to do it?’ ‘Yeah.’ She thought of something, and spoke it in a rush, ‘that doesn’t make it easier though?’ He laughed, showing yellowed teeth. ‘If we all thought that way, we’d never get anything done. This right here?’ He spat off to one side. ‘This is cleaner. This fits.’ And he brought the sacrificial blade down, slaughtering the thriceblessed virgin and spilling her blood onto the altar, completing the profane ritual and ushering in an age of darkness and despair on Earth everlasting. Meanwhile, World War 4 was being fought with sticks.

by luke peverelle

So, huddle up by the (increasingly Southern Hemispherically inappropriate) fireplace, enjoy the fireworks (in three or so months) and see out the year with some enjoyable reading. And remember: that should old acquaintance be forgot, and never thought upon; then you teach me and I’ll teach you, Pokémon! (gotta catch ‘em all) - Andrew (interrupting your regularly scheduled Hayley), on behalf of all 151 WORDLY team members

Zombie Love Stories I used to love zombie films, and I’ve seen plenty, but it doesn’t take you long to realise that they’re all more or less the same. The genre had become stunted but this was not always the case, and it’s only now that it is beginning to come back to life. The zombie apocalypse genre as we know it today was created in 1968 with George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead shortly followed by two sequels, Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead. The zombies were not the villains of the trilogy: they were far too dehumanised and monstrous, attacking more from instinct or hunger rather than with malicious intent. Instead, the major villain of each of these films is humanity itself, with the protagonists often meeting grisly ends because they are unable to trust or rely on one another. In the decades since, this trilogy has been followed by a spate of zombie films, which over time have become less a commentary on man’s inhumanity to man and more of an excuse to film attractive people shooting down zombies with high-calibre weaponry. Maybe it was in response to this evolution into gore-heavy action flicks that convinced Romero to return to film Land of the Dead in 2005. Land of the Dead was unique at the time in that it actually humanised the zombies. The horde of zombies that assault the protagonists in this film only do so after they have suffered an unprovoked attack. Beforehand, we are shown that they are attempting to act out human behaviours: a couple walks the streets hand in hand; a brass band plays their music in the park. In this installment, man’s inhumanity extends even to the zombies.

“otto; or up with dead people, in the flesh and warm bodies have attempted to tell deeper stories of the undead, fleshing out these mindless creatures to tell stories of love, prejudice and recovery from trauma.”

paddy charts the return of the living dead (as a film genre).

BBC’s In the Flesh approaches similar themes. The series begins in the aftermath of a zombie apocalypse. This ‘rising’ was quelled fairly quickly when a ‘cure’ was created that, when regularly taken, silenced the zombie’s hunger and restored their mental functions. These zombies are on the receiving end of prejudice and violence, and if they are murdered there is little to no public outcry. One zombie, Amy, learns to accept who she now is and as she grows comfortable in her own skin, her hands begin to shake. Her body starts rejecting the ‘cure’ and out of habit she starts cooking food. Unsure whether or not she is coming back to life or going rabid, Amy goes an entire day without her medication, eats real food and tentatively begins a relationship. We never learn what she is becoming, as Amy’s second life is ended prematurely in an act of senseless violence. Another work, Warm Bodies, a novel by Isaac Marion, is told from the first-person perspective of a zombie named R. R kills a young man named Perry and eats his brain, which causes him to experience Perry’s memories of falling in love with a young woman named Julie. Realising Julie is also in the city, R saves her and returns her to the human stronghold. As they spend time together R and Julie begin to fall in love, and as they do so, R’s heart begins to beat again and he starts to become more human. Like Otto, Warm Bodies blurs the distinction between what is alive and what is dead. Towards the end of the first novel— Julie’s father—Colonel Grigio—a soldier obsessed with the eradication of zombies after the death of his wife—emerges as the main villain. Grigio refuses to accept the evidence that the zombies can recover and instead tries to kill R. After Grigio’s death it is revealed that there is no flesh beneath his skin—only bones—revealing that the plague has spread so far as to infect the ‘living’—who are dead inside. Meanwhile, while R may appear to be dead on the outside—at his core he is proven to be very, very human. Horror and gore have had their place in zombie stories but now the genre is actually telling stories of the dead coming back to life. Otto; or Up With Dead People, In The Flesh and Warm Bodies have attempted to tell deeper stories of the undead, fleshing out these mindless creatures to tell stories of love, prejudice and recovery from trauma. In so doing they have returned to the original impetus of the genre: man’s inhumanity to man.

This has disproven the contention that the zombie genre has been mined of all creative merit. Instead creators are beginning to present zombies not as dehumanised monsters but as people who have lost their humanity. One example of this is Otto; or Up With Dead People which features not only zombies and gore but also heavy doses of romance and sexuality. Otto’s director Bruce La Bruce explained that the film was ‘a reaction against torture porn’, when many films featured gratuitous examples of characters suffering extreme violence and trauma in the name of drama. La Bruce presented the zombie characters attempting to recover from such experiences: ‘People come back to life in my film, it’s a metaphor for healing.’ As a zombie Otto is especially haggard and disheveled, and he has difficulty talking for long periods of time. However, the Otto that appears in flashbacks to when he was ‘alive’ shows him to be handsome, happy and in love. The film never explains how he died, or even if he died at all. Towards the end of the film, Otto meets his former lover and learns why they broke up. During their meeting Otto holds a long conversation and afterwards when he leaves, having achieved some closure, he is shown to slowly start walking instead of shambling like the disheveled corpses of Romero’s films. In the film’s final scenes, Otto and his friend Fritz have a sexual encounter and between shots, Otto seemingly transforms and appears as he was when he was alive. When Fritz wakes, Otto is gone and in his place is a card shaped like a headstone scrawled with ‘R.I.P.’. Otto himself is last seen walking towards the sunrise. This ending is ambiguous but implies that there is hope for Otto, because it seems that to him alive and dead are simply states of mind. Perhaps he can recover and come back to life, but for now he is simply too afraid to do so.

artwork by andrew roberts

A ROM-COM TO SOLVE ALL YOUR PROBLEMS with blair duncan

Solution:

JUST MARRIED Tom and Sarah are in a love/hate marriage. If this movie has taught me anything, it’s that sometimes to feel better and move on you just have to let it all out first. #aintdatthetruth

Solution:

MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING This movie is a refreshing take on the usual rom-com. Still full of the usual plot devices and clichés (that we all know deep down we love), this movie also has an important message to not feel pressured by where society thinks you ‘should’ be.

Solution: Solution:

THE WEDDING SINGER

Annie is probably the quirkiest character in any recent rom-com. You’ll laugh at her antics, you’ll sympathize with her problems, but more importantly, like Annie, you’ll find the resolve to face your adversity head on.

Robbie is basically having a shit time and feels completely hopeless, but with perseverance he works through his troubles and ends up on top. This movie is not only so effortlessly funny, its emphasis on the importance of a ‘can do’ attitude is a message that we all need reaffirmed sometimes.

BRIDESMAIDS

I’m hella pissed and I’m going to sit here and grunt about it.

WHY DID I HELP MYSELF TO A SECOND SERVING OF DESSERT? WHY?

START HERE I feel lethargic, unmotivated and I don’t want to do anything.

Is this it? Is this really my life?

Everything sucks. What’s the point?

Pair this with:

EAT, PRAY, LOVE BY ELIZABETH GILBERT Liz pushes past the ‘should’ in her life and puts her happiness first. Sometimes we all feel limited by what we feel we should be. We should be like this. We should feel like this. But sometimes it just isn’t like that. Eat, Pray, Love will certainly spark you into action to make those life-changing decisions that we often just need to make.

Pair this with:

A PACKET OF TIM TAMS Pair this with:

INTO THE FUTURE BY ARCHITECTURE IN HELSINKI I always bop along to this when I’m feeling miserable because it’s just so light and upbeat (if pleasure had a sound, you dig?). Team this with some other bouncy songs (How We Do by Rita Ora and/or My Life Would Suck Without You by Kelly Clarkson) to get you feeling cheery and energized.

Feel determined and click yourself into confidence. Blogs are a convenient way to spark the ‘off the couch and into action’ attitude you need. Remember not to mistake the humble words of others as the equivalent of advice of a paid professional. I suggest thisislifeblood.com

Pair this with:

THE LATEST EDITION OF FRANKIE MAGAZINE In a world where appearance often seems synonymous with happiness, you definitely need reassuring that THIS IS FALSE. Frankie, with its mixture of informative, comedic and light-hearted pieces (and absolutely no emphasis on the latest mascara that you simply must have), is sure to leave you untroubled and carefree.

Pair this with:

A VISIT TO AN INSPIRING BLOG

It’s a well known, highly disputed fact that chocolate is the best thing for a sour mood. I mean, for argument’s sake, who can voice a serious complaint with a block of chocolate in hand? Not me. Solution:

BRIDGET JONES’S DIARY This freaking hilarious movie will show you that: one, it’s okay to wear big undies, and two, personality trumps everything else. Period.

V E R T I G O by claudia sensi contugi

Bells clang midnight. Passing the bridge alongside Ponte Vecchio, boot heels clap ancient stone. Red coat wrapped like a second skin, her arms hold it in place. On her way home. Passing the bridge alongside Ponte Vecchio. Far below, the water reflects the stars. Not a gust of wind. The street lamps spill murky light above the pedestrians–multicoloured ants, hunting last minute gifts, hurrying to get home to see their kids. Not a gust of wind. The Arno River is calm, sleeping. Like absinthe parked in a shot glass. The boots stop. Turn. Up ahead: Ponte Vecchio, Florence’s icon. An old stone bridge with houses built across, chipped yellow paint and creaking windows. What was so beautiful about an old bridge with old houses on top? She didn’t know. But it was. Tonight, the water reflects Ponte Vecchio like a mirror. Two Ponte Vecchios are before her. Glaring. Calling. She walks to the center of the bridge, where triangular slabs of concrete jut out at the sides like grey wings. A standpoint for tourists collecting memories. A teenage shelter for making out, a junkyard for drunks to toss empty beer bottles, a concrete canvas for urban artists. She knows the place, understands the appeal. She’s spent afternoons there: dreaming, watching, thinking. Standing there, looking ahead, it’s just you, the water, Ponte Vecchio, and the ancient graffitied stone beneath. Nothing else matters. She climbs over the ledge and lands on the triangle, her black curls bobbing on her shoulders. The concrete is about three metres, its borders converging, until kissing at the tip. The moon shines green in broken shards of glass. She kicks them away, then plunks down, her back to the wall. She stretches her legs, the tip of her boots pointing up at the stars. Leans her head back, the stone freezing her spine. Closes her eyes. Breathes in. Puffs out, her breath a white cloud that expands, and disappears. Breathes in. Puffs out. She looks ahead. The lights, the bridge. Left and right, people in the streets hurrying to get home. Home. She didn’t want to go just yet. She flexes her knee, black stockings clinging to the stone. Flexes the other, and stands. Cold hits her face, and her cheeks fill with blood to keep in the warmth. She takes off her scarf, and lets it flutter to the ground. Her fingers unbutton her coat, then throw it on top of the scarf. And she watches: eyes piercing the old stone, the wooden rooves, the creaking windows, the chipped paint. She looks down, and it’s not one bridge, but two. But this new bridge is even more beautiful somehow—clearer, brighter. Her feet guide her forward, closer. She watches the arches of the bridge dip in the water, form a semi-circle, then soar towards the air merging into a full circle, into one bridge, uniting two cities. Her gaze drifts to the Ponte Vecchio in the water. Its houses aren’t old. The paint isn’t chipped. The windows aren’t creaky. And left and right she sees the people, the inhabitants of this reflected city, not hurrying to buy last minute gifts, but walking slowly, reveling in the sight. And watching her. Beckoning, calling, pulling. Two more steps. Her eyes glued to the two cities and the bridge in the black sky. Her only connection with earth, the tip of concrete at the soles of her boots. What would it be like not to feel the stone beneath her anymore? To float towards the nightlights, towards that city, towards those people? What would it be like for this to be the last thing she sees–for this moment, this magic, to be the last thing she feels? What would that be like? She breathes in. Puffs out. It’s a pull.

the survivor narrative On Thursday night I was sitting in a hotel room, watching The Last Leg, and Adam Hills came out with, ‘You know what? Here’s something that I’ve never said before, and I’ve never seen a disabled person say before: having a disability is fucking annoying. Do you know that I mean? It’s a pain in the arse’. The reason I was sitting in a hotel room was that I had an appointment the next day. Almost four years ago now, I had the misfortune of being involved in a car accident. Even though the car accident occurring was bad fortune—if one out of a million things that happened that morning in the life of myself or the other driver had been different, it wouldn’t have happened—I need to tell you that everything else about it was incredibly lucky. The way that my head was turned when the other car hit me is the reason I ended up with a skull fracture and not quadriplegia; the vehicle behind me on the road was an ambulance, so I received the fastest possible medical treatment; the hospital I ended up at had the best trauma department for my specific injuries. These things are not lost on me. But I ended up with a traumatic brain injury (sometimes affectionately referred to as ‘my brain graze’), which is why I still occasionally make the 400 km trek to the city for appointments. Brain injuries are both similar and incredibly different to other injuries one might receive in a car accident. You have scars and bruises, like on other parts of your body. There is the capacity for improvement over time, especially if you’re like me and injured at a time when neuroplasticity is the next big craze in a booming health industry (brain

training anyone?). But unlike other areas of the body, the injury itself is hidden and recovery is rarely complete. People have a tendency to take an injury less seriously when they can’t see its impacts, and offer less sympathy. This goes for health professionals, too. When someone working in a head trauma ward says, ‘We expect you to make a full recovery’, what they actually mean is, ‘You will be able to feed and dress yourself, walk and talk without assistance’. Because the scars aren’t visible, there’s no constant reminder to other people that your life has never been the same since, or that the fact that you can do some things doesn’t mean they’re not an enormous struggle. It’s tiring and frustrating to see other people file the accident as history when you confront scars or deficits day after day. This is the murky side to trauma survival stories that we don’t often hear about. The stories we frequently see in the media follow what I call the ‘survivor narrative’. There is a sort of script, a story line that other people expect you to follow after you’ve been through a traumatic event: something terrible happens but, rather than feeling sorry for yourself, you power through the tragedy to recover completely and feel nothing but gratitude for your survival and a new lease on life from your near-death experience. This is recognisable when people ask, ‘But you’ll be okay?’ and keep repeating the question until you reduce your answer to, ‘Yes, I’ll be fine’. They don’t want to know about how you are reminded that you had the accident every day because everything

phoebe nagorcka-smith explores living with a disability.

is harder, that there are some things you simply can’t do anymore, or that this injury will never go away. It can scare people to hear that everything doesn’t always work out in the end, and it confronts them with a situation that isn’t completely good or bad. An issue that Adam Hills raised was that people with a disability, acquired or from birth, can be made to feel that they shouldn’t share their story unless it fits into the survivor narrative. Unless they’re grateful and positive and succeeding despite the odds. I have struggled with this over the last four years. I don’t have gory hospital photos of my injuries (Mum thought it would be intrusive), emotional rehab stories (I wasn’t offered any) or a bunch of affirmations tacked to my mirror to ‘keep me going through those dark times’. I have, on occasion, asked the world tearfully what I ever did to deserve this injury and begged it to let me take it back. I have felt guilty for not being never-endingly grateful for my survival or just taking everything in my stride. I have felt second-rate for not being able to fit into the trauma poster girl story that the media inspires us with. It’s easy to get caught up in the world of affirmations and mantras, hoping that they’ll turn the pain into acceptance. The reality is that they perpetuate the over simplification of people’s experiences of pain and distress. They have also worked their way into our language, with family and friends believing that a steady repetition of, ‘You’re strong, you’ll be okay’ or, ‘You’re so lucky to be here, it could have been so much worse’ will genuinely ward off grief. A grieving process

that is normal, but often feared, as if sadness is akin to weakness or a sign that the person won’t survive. The reality is that you’re not always going to feel strong, or even that you have the power to make positive changes in your life. You’re sure as hell not going to feel lucky when you’re trying for the tenth time to accomplish something that two months ago you would have done without thinking. There is no perfect thing to say to someone going through something traumatic, but some comments can come across as insensitive when they only reflect one aspect of a really mixed up situation. People will keep struggling with this shallow narrative unless we destroy it. We need to talk about the reality of the struggles that people face after accidents or injuries, not just whether they live or die. We need to give people room to feel frustration and loss, because grief is an important part of the recovery process. This all requires honesty and a platform where people won’t fear backlash for being ungrateful. Adam Hills speaking about disability in the way he did, no matter how brief the comment, took a fair amount of courage. I’d like to stand with him on this one. Having a disability really sucks sometimes. And I miss the way things were.

O r a n ge s by alison evans

You are six and you go to the farmers’ market with your grandmother to help her pick out the best oranges. She takes you because you know how to spot them, and everyone knows you can only use the best oranges if you want to make the best muffins and smoothies and cakes and juice in the world. Sometimes it takes forever and your legs ache but you don’t mind because anything is worth it for that orange cake. The supermarket is different to the farmers’ market, with the cold lights and conditioned air. You are seven and the juice from the oranges is sticky, but you don’t mind. Grandma cuts the fruit in half and you squeeze them down on top of the juicer until all the juice runs down the sides and collects in the rim around the edge. You are surprised that a whole orange only has so much juice in it. Grandma measures all the other ingredients and tips them into the mixing bowl. She lets you crack the eggs and do the mixing. She pours it into a cake tray, after you’ve taste-tested it as you watch from your stool at the bench. Your legs are long enough now that you don’t need anyone’s help getting up on the stool. For the first time, you notice her hands are shaking. You are eight and a half and Grandma asks you how school is going. School is boring and you don’t really want to talk about it, but you say it’s fine. You’re studying Antarctica, even though you’ve done it a hundred times already. You laugh because you think you’re smarter than the teachers. She repeats her question: How is school going? There is an odd look on her face that you can’t quite place. You tell her again; you don’t question why she asks twice. On the way home you ask your mother and she tells you that Grandma is getting old. She tells you other things that you don’t understand, but you know what a brain is. You are nine and Grandma gives you all the fifty-cent pieces from a bowl on the kitchen bench. She says they’re too heavy for her purse. You laugh because you think she is joking. You are eleven as you say hello to Grandma. She says hello back and looks at you strangely. You think it is silly, but just for a second you’re not sure that she knows who you are. She gets something out of the fridge: orange cake. At first you are excited, but then you realise that it’s store-bought. It’s dry and too sweet and tastes like it’s not real.

You are almost thirteen when Grandma is moved into a retirement home. You don’t like it in there; there are people you don’t know and Grandma’s room is so small. You have to put in a code to open the door to get out of the building. It reminds you of a prison, even though you have never been to one. There isn’t a kitchen in Grandma’s room. You are fifteen and you are with your mother. You both walk down the hallway until you reach room 57: Grandma’s room. The first thing you see is a glass of orange juice on her bedside. You can’t see her at first, but then you spot her sitting on the chair, looking out the window. Burt’s died, she says as she turns toward you. You stare at her. Burt was your grandfather who you never met. He died three years before you were born. Your mother stares, too. Eventually, she makes you sit in the hall. She’s in there with Grandma for well over an hour and you appropriate a book from the small library that is in the living area. You stare at the printed words but you don’t read them. You wonder if Grandma is even aware of it. When your mother emerges from Grandma’s room, you both don’t speak of what Grandma said. You don’t say goodbye to her, and you punch in the little code to get out. It’s not until the next day you realise you didn’t return the book. You are seventeen and can barely stand the sight of her. There is so little flesh on her arms that you feel you could remove her wedding ring and put it around her wrist. You say hello and she smiles at you, but she cannot speak. Words would break her. You take her hand and tell her how school is. You tell her about the books you’re reading, about what you got for your birthday last week. You speak for what feels like hours and you feel like if you stop speaking then something bad will happen. There are tears in your eyes and you can’t look at her. Her eyes are dull. Eventually she falls asleep and the nurse asks you to leave. After you get off the bus, you go to the supermarket and buy as many oranges as you can carry home. It’s only three days later when you get the call.

by kyah horrocks

I hear fizzing your own drinks was big in the 70s and so the closest I’d ever want to get to experiencing that glittery, hot-panted roller-decade is when I pull my SodaStream down from where it lives on my bedside table and go to sleep giving it a cuddle, because I love it so much. For this review however, on the advice of my little sister (who will remain ‘little’ despite how thoroughly adult we’ve each become, let alone how much taller than me she’s been since we were kids), I’ve had to regress deeper into the retro puddle from where I fish my source material. All the way back to 1974. My sister had contacted me this week asking if she could borrow the enormous conical flask she knows I keep in my car (for scientific emergencies). Somewhere in this exchange she tells me to review her new favourite film, Phase IV—I hear something about ‘yellow’ and ‘ants’ in the garbled mess her enthusiasm is making of her words and that’s evidently good enough for me. I should have known better than to trust her sense of acceptable reality—this is the same girl who would mishear people’s names on the home phone and nonchalantly announce that ‘Bread’ was calling. Nonetheless, I got a copy of Phase IV, subjected myself to it and stayed awake through its vast majority, a feat of which I am proud. Our opening sequence features synthetic droning and some freakydeaky space-type imagery, and even though at the time of production The Terminator would have been nothing more than a glint in a metalworker’s eye, that has got to be the same ‘hi-tech computer font’ used ten years later in the original Terminator film. This would eventually prove to be the film’s most endearing feature, but only if you love The Terminator as much as I do. But enough about films that are good, let’s check in with some ants. So two intrepid scholars from ‘The University’ who we shall call Denim and Beard have arrived in a desert valley called ‘Paradise City’ where the grass is brown and the houses aren’t developed yet. Despite the creepy intermittent British narration, what’s going on is never really crystal clear. I guess they’ve arrived to investigate strange ant behaviour because different ant species are now speaking to one another, and if you get together enough flashy lights and plastic switches inside a desert biodome you can listen to them with science or something. With no CGI the filmmakers have just had to … film a lot of real ants. I will give credit to Ken Middleham, the main ant man on set; it couldn’t have been easy to tease out all that seemingly cognizant behaviour from so many insects. It is a bit disturbing to watch all of those actual insect deaths though, and between the exploding ant abdomens, time-lapse murders of spiders, sheep corpses and horse screams, this movie does at times resemble the grand exercise in animal cruelty it likely was. Yeah, dark.

(1974)

Denim and Beard visit a farm and evict its elderly occupants while gawking at a token female on a horse. Her name is Kendra and she has a disappointingly timeless hairdo. Kendra turns up at the biodome after ants attack and destroy the family car and while they’re at it, all the family members who aren’t her. As shit gets more and more hectic it’s with a sense of unease that I notice how remarkably calm Denim and Beard are about the impending antpocalypse, and how in-her-stride Kendra processes the death of her loved ones. But then I remember that back then you could still get Quaaludes so the emotional wasteland that is these performances may not be all that inappropriate. Denim obsesses about talking to ants and Beard cleverly hides his mysteriously swelling right hand under a jacket while smoking the pain away. Near as I can gather, the outer space master plan went like this: Phase I involved close-ups of ants, Phase II was all about ambient electro and hanging out in the desert (making Phase II seem a bit like a bush doof) and Phase III had something to do with a drooping orchid. None of this makes any particular sense, but I do like the part where the antpocalypse is briefly stymied by Beard who turns a dial and announces from within the biodome that he’s ‘countering with 100% yellow’. This swift yellowing is performed without the benefit of any context whatsoever, but it does inspire me to want to arm my house with a security feature that blankets my neighbourhood in mac and cheese powder when I feel threatened. Anyway through all the flares—both lens and pant—there is assumedly a story here. It involves ants setting a trap for Beard, Kendra going the way of her dead horse and Denim realising that Phase IV of an actual alien ant farm is to get at ‘us’. I must admit I was pretty happy to be falling asleep in the cold embrace of my SodaStream as Phase IV finally arrived. I can’t be mad at my little sister though; it’s not like this movie was ever going to be good when I know full well our house never once received a phone call from a loaf of bread. Kyah is on twitter @1rednail and Tumblr as tinkwisdom

Letter of Goodbye tom greenwell bids his previous life in melbourne farewell. In a mere handful of hours, during late July, I quit Melbourne to move interstate. It was with mundane routine, a series of lists and one final evening with Stefanie that I abandoned the house. With no home, no job and only a suitcase, I came to live in Sydney. It’s odd what you pack in these rushed moments of transition: the red and black CNT flag from my homeland, a deck of kitsch Maoist themed playing cards from Japan, and a handful of books on economics, politics and ethics. These were the things that meant enough to be worth taking: my whole Melbournian life in a suitcase. One might imagine that such a move would evoke feelings of anxiety, fear or trepidation. No such luck: for all intents and purposes, I didn’t give a damn. Change has simply become normal. But that is to be expect with the intensity with which I have experienced a self-revolution over the past few months. On the 12th of November 2012, at an hour past human compassion, I wrote to the online world that ‘It’s not really working anymore; and it’ll probably collapse before long’. It is perhaps unsurprising that people can be aware of their unhappiness, of the structures that are holding them still, and yet remain unwilling to abandon them. For a full year after I made it clear that I was in misery, weakness kept me where I ought not to have stayed. The following day, the 13th, after a half dozen hours of lying awake with melancholy coursing through me, I said to my Other that I didn’t remember why I’d written that cry for help. I actively lied; I refused to surrender the comfort of that unhappy structure even though I knew I should have given it up. It wasn’t until after I had completed my dissertation that this structure came crashing down. With hindsight, I realise that it was a waste of a year. Yet I bear no ill-will, nor any of the lingering hatred that characterises the other participants of that safe unhappiness. And, as it went down in flames, every other refusal and barrier I’d set up came down with it. For anyone who knew me less than two years ago, the idea of my arm being marked permanently with the words ‘Hell is–Other people!’ would seem absurd. So too would any notion that I might yearn to feel the rhythm course through my body as I dance (with a stupid grin on my face) until the early hours of the morning. The idea that I might one day be married–which I had written against in the pages of this very magazine–would merit nothing but derisive laughter.

‘it is perhaps unsurprising that people can be aware of their unhappiness, of the structures that are holding them still, and yet remain unwilling to abandon them.’ And yet here we are: I, the dancer and rebel, with a No Exit tattoo and a past that amounts to a trail of destruction. How ridiculous it may seem, to go from being uptight and controlled to destabilised and in a permanent state of liberation. I may have pretentiously spoken Sartre’s words that ‘man is condemned to be free,’ but they were simply empty signifiers. The only way forward was to experience the world and become, as Camus says, ‘so absolutely free that [my] very existence is an act of rebellion’. Upon seeing the structures I had set up come crashing down, the very idea of an essential me became fanciful. A close friend remarked of this period that I had ‘been a little off the rails’. No, Zea, there are no rails on which to be.

But it is impossible to experience liberation of the better kind until you’ve really felt liberation at its freest. The warmest months of this summer were the closest I have come to taking my exit. But for a dealer with my best in her heart, I’d have drifted off this earth in crystal clear, calm bath water. It’s a wonderful feeling knowing you’re about to leave forever. When you have stared into the abyss for long enough, and when old friends have tried so very hard to give you that little extra push you need to jump, a sense of deep clarity washes through your every move. The edges of dark lift from your eyes, and the world will shimmer anew. The abyss does not seem so cold; it becomes a welcoming friend who only has the desire to lift the great sorrow that crushes you. You become unequivocally free. But this liberation was not to be and, in the words of Nietzsche, I offered my ‘thanks to the monster who didn’t succeed in swallowing me alive’. Instead I had known the other, unspoken, side of liberation. It is something entirely new to actually stare the absurd in the face, to actually see a clearly defined end. It is the other element of total destabilisation, the part whispered about and hardly heard. Upon bidding adieu to the monster, I threw away the comfort of the secure, and I jumped. Freedom was striding hungover through Roman ruins, almost being arrested by police for producing an anarchist banner in a Spanish government building, and being bade farewell by a grandmother of the CNT. With eclectic randomness, without any plan or structure, I finally went home to my beloved Barcelona. I read Homage to Catalonia on the Ramblas, in a park named for Walter Benjamin, and I stood where Andrés Nin had disappeared into a black bag; I finally saw my past, the ruins of Roman glory; I visited an old friend in Prague; and I spent my time indulging in the pleasures that I had long denied. I danced and drank, joyful and free, and burned out brighter than the northern lights. It was not alone that I experienced my liberation; my intense road to freedom was fuelled by those who flitted in and out during the revolution that gave me a history worth remembering. For giving me the kind of eclectic hope only she could trade in, I thank you, dear Celeste. For reminding me that even when everything is certain, we must always take that drunken leap, I bid adieu to the girl from the Scottish plains, Lee, whom I will never see again. To Katie of Essex, whose passions were ignited on a warm evening in my beloved Barcelona, I can only thank you for reminding me that sometimes careless good looks and the intensity of the moment are all that is needed to bring ourselves to moments of joy. And to my beautiful Stefanie, who gave me the kindness and warmth that I will always remember; who replaced the bitter viciousness that may have otherwise been the shadow of Melbourne; the only girl I ever cared enough for to cry when we parted ways, I can only thank you for the smile that will write itself across my face when your memory comes back to hold me in moments of oblivion. And so now I bid farewell to Melbourne, with a sense to bittersweet finality. To the friends and university who gave me happy memories, I thank you. To my past, I bear no ill-will. To dear Stefanie, I have no words but those I spoke upon our parting. And to anyone who cares to read this, and anyone who has read what I have written before, I leave one final thought: There is no core, no essence; you are just a floating signifier. So dance like dear Death is moments from delivering you to freedom. To my joyful history with love, Yours faithfully,

Tommy le Vert.

artwork by andrew roberts

The Cabin

Mediation jack

sarah-rose mutch

kirne

The edges of your lips—drawn tight—exaggerate the animation of your smile. You ask me how I’m going and I’m to scared to lie, so I tell you ‘fine.’ Because I’m mute, you tell me of your world—you open up When I think of the sand or ocean I can’t help but think of the place I once called home, once called solace, throughout my childhood. It was falling apart, and the pieces did not quite fit, just like its inhabitants. But it always remained there when we needed it most. A tiny little square of walls, with a caravan extension. It proved to me that the most unappealing things are beautiful when you just let them into your heart. I know my Mum misses it, I can still picture her sitting on one of the tired old couches—the smell of her third cup of tea filling the sea salt air. The kitchen had a stove that didn’t work and was infested with mice in the wet winter, but gosh Mum always managed to cook up a feast on the plug-in frying pan, surrounded by all who we loved, the crashing rush of the sea barely noticeable over the sound of chattering voices, “No, Jack don’t hit him,” “I was almost crushed by a wave today!” “the bream are biting this summer!” All our family & friends called this place home. Five water leaks and an old tree falling on the roof yet the cabin stood strong, almost like it knew we needed it to. I often find myself still thinking of it as if I can pack up and go there. I wish this were the case. I just hope it saves another family. Just like it saved mine. Our little cabin, Narra-Villa.

T h e

W i n d o w s. I peek inside.

You sing as you sift the flour. Your hips shake, unmediated by fear of judgment the sound of your voice carries throughout the halls of your sparsely furnished home and settles

in my skin.

Later, I run my beard along your spine I kiss the shoulder.

Inside I was new.

Now as the days draw into July: Your windows are closed and the curtains are drawn. I wonder if you showed me the door—if so I was too afraid to come in

I sit outside and listen to echoes of your wonderland.

#ALSicebucketchallenge by jessica harvie

By now, there’s no way that you haven’t seen a beloved celebrity or estranged high school friend doused with ice water. The #ALSicebucketchallenge is touring around the internet, starring on YouTube and Facebook, Instagram and Vine. You know the drill: do it and donate. Everybody is keen to get in and get their hands dirty (or wet), but in some cases, the challenge has become not unlike a game of Chinese whispers: sometimes things get lost in translation. As a result, there have been a few challenges floating around that don’t reference ALS. So you’ve seen it, or done it for fun, but do you understand what it’s about? Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) is one of the five major diseases in the Motor Neuron Disease (MND) family, otherwise known as Lou Gehrig’s in the US and more commonly as MND in Australia. These diseases cause the nerve cells that control muscles to deteriorate and then die, meaning that people affected by MND lose control of their muscles, to the point where they can’t speak, swallow, walk or move in general. Recent studies conclude that 4 in 5 MND sufferers keep most of their mental cognition and senses – one in five will suffer a kind of dementia associated with MND – and patients have described feeling ‘trapped inside their own body’.

“at the end of the day you can change out of your wet clothes, but they cannot.” The whole point of the ALS ice bucket challenge is to simulate this sensation by stunning the nerves with the ice water so that we have some understanding of what the sufferer goes through. Obviously, as people doing the challenge, we only have to deal with the sensation for a minute, but 1900 people in Australia experience it every second of every day. According to MND Australia, every day 2 people are diagnosed with MND and 2 people die of MND. It is a terminal disease – there is no cure or effective treatment – and once diagnosed, the average life expectancy is 27 months. It doesn’t just affect the person with the disease; it affects their husbands and wives, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters – the people who will most likely take on the position of caretaker.

Modern Black by jaquim duggan Under a roof we sleep, rather than stars, Phone charger’s blue glow, instead of skies, New songs of metal and man, Of Metro and fashion. The billabong is dirty, Brown bitter water is art, Spasm and jerk is the dance, Conjured by E and bath salts, Not of stories and ancestors. We tell stories true and false, Not of land, but of celebrity and enemy. We are changing, you are old.

MND was widely unheard of until the challenge, and in many ways, that is why it has been such a success as a tool for spreading community awareness. The ALS ice bucket challenge also brings in much needed donations. Not only do the donations help fund research, but they provide support, care and information for MND sufferers. I urge everybody who has participated, or will participate, to read up on the disease and inform themselves. So if you’re going to do it, make sure it’s because you’re supporting ALS and not because you’re only following an internet trend. Because at the end of the day you can change out of your wet clothes, but they cannot.

CONTRIBUTORS applemint paddy amarant jaquim duggan blair duncan alison evans tom greenwell jessica harvie kyah horrocks jack kirne sarah-rose mutch phoebe nagorcka-smith luke peverelle andrew roberts claudia sensi contugi