wordly MAGAZINE
EDITION TWO 2021
Foreword
It’s the water quenching those house plants we neglect. It’s the renewal of the spirits after the storm subsides. Revive presents itself a time where we can revitalise and arise anew. This issue comes from the ashes of Erupt with pieces that aim to contemplate and inspire. The writers featured within this edition showed the dualism of the theme. From heavier pieces that explore the catastrophic effects humans have on the environment to heart-warming ones that reveal the beauty of family and imagination, this edition will surely leave its mark.
The artists have demonstrated their talent across various mediums as well. Blending the stark with the tranquil, the artwork perfectly encapsulates the different facets of ‘Revive’. Within the wake of last year, we’ve all faced many challenges that sometimes proved impossible. However, 2021, while far from perfect has provided us a chance to awaken our craft once again and sharpen our creativity to the grindstone. Our team and talented designer have worked incredibly hard and I’d like to personally thank them all for all of their efforts. But mostly I’d like to thank you, the reader, without your support we wouldn’t be able to share our pieces around to such an audience.
We truly hope that ‘Revive’ is one that’ll sweep you in a tide of wonder and that it’ll rejuvenate something within you. Jason Winn, Managing Editor
Editor-in-Chief: Becky Croy
Managing Editor: Jason Winn
Communications Manager: Jessica Wartski Financial Manager: Blair Morilly Designer: Amin Rajbanshi
Front Cover Artist: Alf Ciriaco
Editors: James Barnett Jessica Hinschen Elisabeth Roberts Sub-Editors: Patricia Clarke Sheridan Harris Sarah Hurst Blair Morilly Loren Sirel Sini Salatas Samara Tapp Jessica Wartski
Contributors: Melissa Bandara Viv Benchick Jax Bulstrode Alf Ciriaco Himani Dias Catherine Fitzgerald Rebekah Griffin Belinda Hearn Sarah Hurst Sharmila Jayasinghe Monique Kostelac Daniel Matters Katie McClintock MK Pinder Loren Rae Lauren Robson Anders Ross Abbigail Smith Friederike Wiessner Jason Winn
WORDLY would like to acknowledge the Wurundjeri and Wadawurrung people of the Kulin nation, the traditional owners of the land on which this magazine has been produced and edited. We pay our respects to their Elders: past, present, and emerging.
2
© 2021 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
04 Thrice SalT
19 TOMATO PLANT
05 ABSTRACT IMAGERY
20 WOMEN IN WAR
06 FLUTTER
22 BURNT ORANGE SUMMER
Friederike Wiessner Melissa Bandara Rebekah Griffin
Sarah Hurst
Monique Kostelac Jax Bulstrode
08 A DIFFERENT VIEW OF JACK 23 BABA YAGA Lauren Robson
Belinda Hearn
09 MANDRAKE
24 MORNING LIGHT
11 REJUVENATE
25 MOTHER NATURE
12 THE DAY OF THE FUNERAL
26 MT. HOTHAM
14 EVOLUTION
27 MARGARET
15 ARTIST’S WIFE
29 WISH YOU WELL
16 LEAF OF A TREE
30 VOLUNTARY POSITION
18 PLANT CARE
32 QUICK DIP
MK Pinder Alf Ciriaco
Sharmila Jayasinghe Belinda Hearn Belinda Hearn
Catherine Fitzgerald Viv Benchick
Katie McClintock Jason Winn
Katie McClintock Himani Dias
Melissa Bandara Anders Ross
Katie McClintock
33 KINGDOM OF PLASTIC Daniel Matters
34 FRIEND OF MINE Loren Rae
35 PRESENCE OF MIND Abbigail Smith
3
thrice salt Friederike Wiessner
the storm last night gave gifts to the meadow: seaweed feeding flattened grass shells and plastic left unclaimed in the grey light these days, i go to the black shore and cry aware i’m the only spark of fire in a landscape of cold calling me home. the storm keeps pushing the infinite to my shore: ‘kiss me feed me your light.’
if i were to give my blood to the sea, what would happen to us? all i want is a soft surrender, the eternal to pierce me, surround me— i take off my shoes. i’ve come to know i am a woman, wayward and wild, and alone.
4
Abstract Imagery - Melissa Bandara @mel.dineli 5
M
arvin gently adjusted his left cufflink, rotating his sleeve slightly. His shirt pulled snug under his wool jacket and he frowned as he thought about how Edna would have disapproved of his regalia. She would have told him the suit was too small, too formal, and too hot to wear on a summer day. But he had always loved it. The pattern was a light grey tartan that reminded him of the way gentlemen used to dress, back in the forties and fifties. The days of drive-ins and community dances, days that he missed dearly; so that morning, he had ignored her voice which he imagined nagging in his head and carefully dressed himself, making sure to iron the shirt and socks the way she always had, even placing a folded handkerchief in his pocket. That, at least, Edna would have approved of. The local RSL club opened at ten o’clock every morning, and once a week, every Thursday, Marvin arrived at eleven to have a little flutter, as he liked to call it, even though it was a usually fruitless exercise; a waste of time and money, as Edna would have called it.
‘You never win on those wretched things!’ She used to say.
However, other than his regular supermarket trip, and the occasional doctor’s appointment or errand, the weekly visit to the club was the extent of Marvin’s interaction with the outside world. A world which was increasingly foreign and unfamiliar every year and had become grey and sad since Edna had passed. Wincing as he eased himself onto the cushioned seat in front of his favourite poker machine, Marvin’s belly pressed tightly against the shirt buttons, his back searing with the pain of stretching muscles that were rarely used these days. Yvette, the head gaming attendant, saw him struggling and immediately put down the glasses she was taking back to the bar, rushing across the gaming room to help him. ‘You right there, Marv?’
She put a hand on his back and gently helped him onto the seat. Marvin grunted gratefully as he righted himself. ‘Not as strong as I used to be,’ he wheezed. He smiled at Yvette and waved her away. She put a hand on her hip and tutted at him.
6
‘No, you’re not,’ she agreed. ‘So, when you want to get up, you yell out to me and I’ll come help you.’ Marvin waved at her again, shooing her away. As he fished his note clip from his breast pocket, he could not help but smile. Yvette was his favourite; she would bring him free drinks and chat to him when the room was not busy. The other staff were friendly, but much younger and spend most of their free time playing around with their cell phones. Yvette was in her sixties, with kids the same age as most of the other staff. Marvin liked it when he could hear her scalding them like they were her own children.
Edna would have liked Yvette, Marvin decided.
The machine in front of him sang an electronic musical scale, ringing merrily as he fed it a crisp fifty dollar note. It greedily sucked the paper into its innards and the screen began to glow. Place your bets, gentlemen. Marvin thought to himself. When he played the pokies, as they are unglamorously called nowadays, he liked to pretend he was in a real casino, somewhere far away, like Las Vegas or Monte Carlo. He pictured roulette and blackjack tables, with well-dressed men and women all laughing and smiling. In his mind, he could see his darling Edna in a glittering gown, young and beautiful. She had the most stunning dark brown eyes and hair when they were younger. He imagined her hanging on his arm and kissing his cheek as he prepared to throw a pair of dice.
Instead, he was interrupted by the hacking cough of a woman a few seats down from him who slapped the “SPIN” button on her machine with ferocity, as if taking her anger out on it would make it give her back the money that she had clearly just lost. She was wearing ripped tracksuit pants that were covered with indiscernible stains and a black singlet top with no bra, her sagging, tattooed chest threatening to pull the neckline down much too far. Marvin flinched as she let out another hacking cough and glared at him. ‘Whaddaya lookin’ at?’ she hissed at him through a mouth full of half-decayed teeth. He shook his head and looked back at his own machine. For a moment, he had considered being a gentleman and offering her the handkerchief from his pocket, but as he listened to her uttering curse words so vile, he knew even well-mannered Edna would have told him to put the handkerchief back and mind his own business.
Turning his attention back to his own machine, he pressed a few buttons, careful to make sure he only bet one cent per line. He did not care about how much or how little he might win or lose, he only came to be around other people, to simply exist in this world that was so lonely now. He lost himself in the multicoloured neon lights and the cheerful beeps and buzzes the machine made every so often. Smiling a little when it lied and said he had won, whilst in reality, spurring him on to press the button once again. Yvette wandered over and placed a warm cup of tea and a biscuit next to his machine.
‘On the house,’ she said with a wink. A familiar joke, as both the biscuit and the tea came from a small counter in the corner of the gaming room that was fully stocked for patrons who might forget to otherwise eat or drink something if they were “on a roll”. Marvin sipped his drink, wondering to himself at what age did people stop assuming you only ever wanted to drink tea. He had never been particularly fond of it, but he was old now and did not want to make a fuss, and knew that his inner-Edna would scold him if he ordered brandy before the clock had struck PM. Suddenly, the machine blared loudly and startled Marvin’s drink from his hand. Lights flashing as the volume seemed to increase to a squeal. ‘Holy fuck, old man!’ Tracksuit Pants exclaimed.
Her toothless mouth was full of complimentary biscuits that sprayed all over the floor and Marvin’s suit. ‘You’ve won the fuckin’ jackpot!’
Yvette rushed around the bar and across the room, putting her hand on Marvin’s shoulder.
‘Marv, oh my goodness! You’ve won over twenty grand!’ The words seemed to fade in and out, Marvin felt his heart pounding in his chest. He watched the roulette wheels on the screen spinning round and around … and around … He barely felt himself fall to the floor, and was hardly conscious at all when the paddles were placed on his chest.
All he could hear was the happy jingling sound from the machine. All he could see were the blinking multicoloured lights and then … ‘Edna,’ he smiled. ‘Edna, we won.’
FLUTTER Rebekah Griffin
7
A Different View of Jack - Lauren Robson @_laurenrobsondesign
8
MANDRAKE MK Pinder
T
here is this literary concept called the ecological sublime. It refers to the metaphysical transcendence, beauty and spirituality at work in the interconnectedness of nature. And humans, despite our best efforts to destroy it, are a part of that ecosystem. We are ‘of nature’. There is something very romantic about the idea that if we strip ourselves down to our core components, our materials, we are not so different from the non-human ecosystem. Her boots hit the cold concrete as she made her way across the square. The ground had been recently cleaned, but little flecks of rubbish still hid in its cracks and grooves. It was a permanently contaminated space. She could feel another crack forming, another tiny piece of her falling away, with every minute of loud discordant chaos and every piece of trampled packaging.
She moved quickly through the perversive symphony and discarded artefacts of the city, soon arriving at the garden. It was a small oasis in an artificial world. An Eden. Somewhere to be still, to reconnect, to decontaminate. As the sun began to set the giant sunflowers turned away from the wire fence and the city beyond. The fence had been erected decades ago to protect this vulnerable treasure from the violence of humanity. Nowadays the protection it afforded was purely symbolic being crudely patched and noticeably leaning. The gate produced its tell-tale rattle and clank as her boots crunched against the grit path.
Her hands brushed against the greenery in the waist-high garden beds as she walked casting her eyes over the familiar lines of plants. The seas of leafy green were punctuated by blossoms and underripe fruit. Nature—curated and imprisoned within corrugated iron cells. She ran her fingers through the fragrant leaves of the herb garden: the untamed peppermint, the sap-laden rosemary, and the failing basil. And there it was right where the sage should have been…
Wide green leaves with rounded tips, dainty flowers, and bright berries that hung from the stems. On the surface there was not a hint of what lay beneath, a complex system of roots, not dissimilar to a human form. It was the fascination of folklore. The stuff of witchcraft. Poisonous and perfect. —Mandragora officinarum—
Or the Mandrake. It was a plant commonly found in Mediterranean climates not in a warm-temperate inner-city garden. It should not have been there.
She traced the edges of the rosette of leaves. The strangeness of it was intoxicating. It gave her an uneasy awareness of her material form its unpleasant masses of flesh and bone. It disgusted her. She wanted to abandon it, to merge with the leaves, to be consumed by the strange masses of roots—absorbed, subsumed, disappearing into the shades of green and brown. But the cold hard surface of the raised garden bed was an unnatural barrier. A human construct confining these non-human forms into neat and manageable rows. It reminded her of hard corporeal truths. She was stuck in this body, this ugly, unnatural human body, so isolated from the world around it.
Mesmerised, she reached out and tore off a leaf. She put it to her mouth daring to take a bite. It was sweet and just a tiny bit acidic. Not at all what she expected. Maybe she had misidentified it? She stared silently at the plant for a long time looking for any signs of its supposed malevolence and witchery. As she watched the roots of the plant began to surface from the earth, writhing and reaching out to her. But when she reached back to touch them, they disappeared. Her mouth was dry, and she couldn’t breathe. The blood in her veins burnt and fizzed.
The world shifted and shrank. She felt dizzy and reached out to steady herself on the cursed flower bed. Slumping to the ground she let out stifled silent cries. She shut her eyes as tears fell down her cheeks, and reached her hands out tracing her fingers through the dirt. She rested, and all that could be heard was the distant traffic, and the busy sounds of an artificial ecosystem.
9
Join
DUSA get the most out of uni life with us
@yourdusa 10
dusa.org.au
Rejuvenate - Alf Ciriaco @alfieedraws
11
THE DAY OF THE FUNERAL Sharmila Jayasinghe
I
feel my insides jump up and down and up and down as the man pulls the rickshaw and speeds along Main Street. Grandfather is angry. On a day he should be sad, he is angry. Nothing had gone right that morning. He didn’t know which applet to wear for funerals. He clipped on the blue, then the red one with the silver lining and decided it was too festive. He ironed his shirt twice. Then, wetting his large hands, he sprinkled water to better iron it a third time. The wrinkles refused to disappear. They stayed on the fabric like the creases on his skin. Grandfather cursed—words that should not have come out of a clergyman’s mouth—then wiped his face to erase the misdeed.
It had been dark inside the house, like the sun had forgotten to rise. Grandfather hadn’t opened the windows for four days. The house smelt of nothing. With the stove put to sleep, the familiar spicy aromas had stopped circling the air. I stood quiet and still and watched Grandfather struggle. I had dressed and was ready to leave long before Grandfather found the right shirt to wear.
Amidst his dilemma, he scanned me from top to toe and shook his head from side to side. His tongue hit the roof of his mouth, drumming that sound of disapproval. ‘Tsk tsk,’ he went, deep in thought. ‘Too joyous,’ he presented at last, ‘like a sunflower.’ He then rocked up and down on his heels. The bounce always gave him clarity. ‘Don’t you have anything lighter in colour? Black?’ he asked, clearly frazzled, tapping his chin with his index finger, like John Wayne in a movie. Grandfather was a tall man. Too tall for a brown man. He said it was because he grew up with white people. I smoothed the sides of my yellow dress, peeped into the floor length mirror and watched Grandfather stomp around the room behind me, pulling this and that, like a giant dinosaur rummaging for food. I did not understand how I should appear at a funeral, but there was no one to ask. It had always been Grandfather, Grandma and me, but now it was just the two of us.
‘This? Or this?’ Grandfather asked, pulling two identical black ties from deep within a drawer. I stared, baffled. ‘Grandma would have dressed us both proper,’ he sighed, defeated and deflated. Stuffing the ties in the drawer, he turned his attention back to the applets. ‘Go and change,’ he commanded. With a wave of his hand, he shooed me out of his room. ***
It was almost an hour before both of us emerged out of our spaces again. Grandfather, in his white cotton tunic, had decided against the applets and the tie—instead, he wore a long silver chain. A crucifix with a skeletal Jesus weighed the chain down. Jesus on the cross laid on Grandfather’s perturbed belly for rest. I too had changed into less joyous clothes, to a black pleated skirt and a white blouse with a lace trimmed collar. I had no jewellery on. I felt like I was ready for school, but Grandfather had approved.
12
Out on the verandah, Grandfather had cleared his throat louder than he does in the mornings at the culmination of his teeth brushing ritual. He was a large man who could make a loud noise. The sound had jolted up Sellaiya, fast asleep against the wheel of his rickshaw. He wiped sleep off his eyes and took his position, like the bull of a cart, and waited for Grandfather and me to climb onto the single, leather-covered seat. Sellaiya looked sad. He was groomed better than other days. A creaseless, white, short-sleeve shirt had replaced the discoloured singlet he wore daily. He still had his usual long, khaki shorts on, but it was quite clear he had washed and pressed them. Looking at him, I wondered if someone had helped Sellaiya choose his funeral clothes. ***
The journey to the cemetery is not a short one. Sellaiya sweats and pants, pulling his load, but the man is resilient. My empty stomach does not welcome the bouncing for long. I feel gas building up, swirling around and bloating my insides. ‘Seeya,’ I say, pulling on Grandfather’s shirt sleeve. ‘I am hungry.’
‘Aha!’ he declares. ‘We forgot to eat!’ We stop at a wooden hut by the side of the road, share a warm fish bun and order a strawberry-flavoured milk, which arrives in a glass bottle. ‘Grandma wouldn’t have let us leave home on an empty stomach,’ Grandfather says, lost in thought, playing with the breadcrumbs on his paper plate. Suddenly he looks older than his age. I wonder if he always had that mop of silver hair, or if his hair turned salt and pepper overnight. ***
At the cemetery Sellaiya parks his rickshaw under a tree, away from the row of cars, and walks with Grandfather and me. A large crowd has gathered at the gravesite. I’m the only child present. Women in the crowd look at me with sad eyes and forced smiles. Everyone is well dressed, all in their official attire—black suits and grey dresses, with additions of hats and sunglasses. Grandfather, Sellaiya and I look like we are off to the Sunday markets. Grandfather, in his leather sandals and simple cotton suit, preaches to the crowd. ‘Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,’ he says, sadness triumphing over anger. I stand hiding behind his large form and watch as the soil people are throwing onto the coffin slowly disappears to the bottom of the rectangular hole in the ground. The sadness and the gloom around me make my throat dry. I am emotional, but not enough for my eyes to water. ***
Back home there’s a leather overnight bag and a basket full of vegetables at the entrance. The door is wide open, showing beyond the corridor. Grandfather’s face lights up at the sight of the bags. Sellaiya smiles, showing his crooked teeth—a first for the day. Grandfather jumps off the rickshaw and inhales sharply. I follow. The old man’s strides are too long to keep up with, but I try. Grandma appears from the shadows. Sunlight frames a halo around her, like the picture of Mother Mary we have on the wall. She is in a floral sari. Her hair is tied at the nape of her neck. She looks tired. She fans herself frantically with an old newspaper. ‘Lucinda is improving. I came as soon as I could,’ she says, hurrying towards us. Aunty Lucinda is the only living relative on Grandma’s side. Her polio leg makes her fall often. This time it was serious, making Grandma take the long train ride to the middle of the island to care for her. Grandma being away for this long is a first for us. Grandfather exhales, relieving his lungs of the tension they have accumulated. He grins like a child and brushes his hands against Grandma’s shoulders, as if by accident. They look into each other’s eyes and share a moment.
Then, Grandma spots me and pulls me towards her. ‘Aiyo, you took the child to the funeral?’ she questions. She brushes strands of hair off my face with her hands and scans me from top to toe. ‘What is she wearing? And … why are you dressed that way? Did you go to the MP’s funeral looking like that?’ she asks Grandfather, who is towering above both of us. The side of her mouth twitches as she attempts to suppress the blossoming laughter. ‘Tsk, tsk,’ she says, flapping her tongue on her palate. She leads us into the kitchen where biscuits and tea await.
13
Evolution - Belinda Hearn @belindahearn_
14
Belinda Hearn
S
he’s in the kitchen skewering lumps of tasty cheese onto toothpicks, the only way the boy likes them. The kettle whistles in chorus with the boy. Another one vying for her all-encompassing attention. His shrill wail and the screeching kettle pop her ears as she pushes at her tired eyes with baby-shit-scented fingers. Nudging rubbery egg around a skillet, its handle hanging on by a single screw. The egg pops, oil flicking up and searing her cheek, but she doesn’t flinch. Her lethargic mind is busy playing with ideas dying at conception.
A grand piece. One she fantasies about on good days. Permeant rose and Prussian blue. Alizarin red. Geometric shapes with no regard for light and shade. The boy is sick with a chest infection, leaving no room for personal space. Grabby hands raised, perched in his high chair. Yellow snot bubbling in his nostrils. She can’t get out to the city where her husband now sits, in his ludicrously expensive studio, share paid by the boys of abstraction. A place of testosterone driven chatter, where male artists pour over Pollock and de Kooning. Her studio is now a boxy corner in the family garage and it is as lifeless as her practice. No space to make the grand gestures she has painted in her thoughts even if she had the time to make them. Once, he and she thought they’d spin the art world together. A time she was a part of the abstraction men. Fertile amongst them. Throwing paint and watching dribbling canvasses for signs of truth. Before her body blew up and spat forth a replica for them both. The boy tore the bristles from the brush she’d bought in Paris in 1993. A lush collection of white sable strands held together with a glistening copper ferrule. Tufts of silvery hair strewn across the worn charcoal carpet like clean clouds pushing against a furious sky. A decapitation of her artistry. She hadn’t lifted a stick of charcoal or pushed a brush through a swirl of paint since its demise. She yearns for the toxic hit of solvent and the punchy aroma of oils. Her husband would be zonal now, buoyant in the chaos of making. Taking his self-indulgent time to delve deeply into weighty masculine art history and working through it in his own magnificent way. A place in which he nestles into creation through the up and down of the sun. A success. Respected. Given space. A place where no thought of home permeates his critically acclaimed success. Her Winsor & Newton paints sit in her dog house studio, but whenever she plans to squeeze them, when the noise maker is finally asleep, her body is drawn back into a now permanent dent she has carved for herself on the family couch. All thoughts of shape and shade and colour and texture will be devoured by exhaustion. When he comes home, he’ll tell her what he made and she will smile. He’ll fuck her then and she will think of dishes, washing and violin lessons, and when he comes, she won’t, but she will sleep long and restlessly soon after and dream of a revival.
15
LE F OF A TREE Catherine Fitzgerald
B
lake ran up to the tree as fast as her little legs would go. This time would not come again for a whole year. No more scaredy-cat. No more running away after getting this far. It would be now. Today. Blake placed her foot into the crook of the first branch bending her elbow over the top of the one above. She lifted her body about six centimetres off the ground. Now, putting the last step in her long-term plan, she felt exhilarated.
Then, she fell off, her head smacked into the branch behind. That hurt. A lot. She rubbed her head. When the pain had subsided, she got up and brushed all the dirt off her jeans. She placed one palm on either cheek and wiped the dirt away. Mixing with her tears, the streaks formed little brown whiskers. Blake’s mind was made up. Now! Today!
With little hands clasping the soft leaf of the tree, she squeezed gently. It bounded, right back to the leaf shape. This leaf, this tree, was living and breathing, even though it looked so different, and did everything differently. It was a part of her with a spirit of its own. She needed this tree. Blake tiptoed to the large base of the tree and stretched her arms out as far as she could. She hugged the tree with all her might. Gently, respectfully, and quietly, she spoke to the spirit of the tree. ‘Miss Tree, Miss Tree, my name is Blake. There is something I need to do but, if you please, I need to climb up your branches to do it. I will be careful, I promise. I need your help. Please!’
As her face rested on the huge trunk, there was a feeling that came to her, and she stayed still. There, she listened and felt, and felt and listened. She knew that the tree had strong arms as much as she knew that her arms were not so strong. She knew if she was careful and only stood on the tree’s arms that could hold her, she would make it there and back without falling off. Blake placed her foot onto another branch, remembering to be calm. She climbed carefully; the tree’s arms seemed to welcome her weight. The smell of the bark and leaves were fresh and crisp, and the tree’s trunk was knobby and had many places for her feet to safely go. What Blake did not know was that a tree could have plans of its own. After climbing for what seemed like forever, she rested, again placing her head on the tree trunk. Then, something very strange seemed to happen. Light bent and the branches of the tree wrapped around behind her. The tiny little ones touched her back, like fingers, holding her so she would not fall. Even the sunlight seemed to bend but not in a way she could explain. In front of her, a large hole appeared in the tree trunk. In the hole was a smooth slide. After stepping into it, she slid down. Down and then around and around—even upside down. She felt dizzy at all the aroundness. Suddenly, the slide flattened out.
16
PLOP!
She fell onto the ground. The room she landed in looked like the inside of a tree. It was light inside and was more like sunlight than bulb light. ‘IS ANYONE HERE?!’ Blake yelled.
’Don’t yell, don’t yell,’ a very irritated voice behind her said. ‘I have very sensitive hearing.’
‘What are you?’ Blake asked the very strange creature. ‘I am an Owlf. I am glad you asked what and not who. Most people ask who and then roll over laughing like they have said something funny.’ ‘There is no ‘ef’ in Owl.’
‘Oh, you doubt me, do you? From where I am standing there is an ‘ef’ in ‘Owlf’.’
Blake looked as hard as she could. Not seeing anything but a big, squat, fat bird, with big eyes and a purple waistcoat. She gave up. Suddenly, a winged insect flew into the room. Blake squealed with fright. ‘Wh … wh … what is it?’
Fear rose in her stomach. The flying insect had a neat tartan pattern on its back and deftly landed on the Owlf’s shoulder. ‘He is a man-bug. We are good friends.’
‘Welcome,’ the insect said, as he pulled a tartan hat out from under his wing and bowed deeply.
He flew over to a hollow log at the edge of the room and disappeared into it. Out from the edge of the lightness the figure of a tree approached, two branches held akimbo.
‘Who are you?’ Blake asked, as she could clearly see what it was. ‘You,’ came the reply. ‘NO!’ Blake had just about had enough. ‘WHO ARE YOU?!’
He went to the far side of the log, stuck his head down the hole and said, ‘Hello … Hello … Hello … Hello …’ It echoed back and forth. Suddenly, a tartaned head shoved right out through the note. ‘You only needed to say it once,’ the irritated man-bug yelled.
Everyone filed to the tree table and sat down, except Mr Clyptus. Blake wondered how she would eat with no spoon. ‘You have fingers,’ Owlf explained. ‘If you want a lot of honey then you just use your biggest finger. If you don’t want so much, then you use your very little finger.’
As there was some logic to this, Blake’s fingers were used. At the end of the meal, her hands were very sticky. Owlf got up from the table and walked over to Mr Clyptus. ‘OUCH, OUCH, OUCH, OUCH, OUCH!’ The long-pointed leaves, which were pulled from Mr Clyptus’ branches, were placed on the table. They were used to clean the sticky honey off everyone. Blake was even able to clean off the ‘whiskers’ she had acquired before she climbed the tree. Remembering the reason for her visit to the tree, Blake said quickly, ‘I need to go now.’ ‘We know.’
Owlf directed her to two little tree steps, warning that once she walked up them, she would be very high up. Blake walked slowly into the clean, fresh breeze, arriving exactly where she had originally wanted to go. Looking down she gasped in awe at the large nest. A circle with mud, twigs, fur, and spring buds—along with five little eggs. One of the baby birds had nearly pecked his shell off. Blake whispered in wonderment. ‘Welcome, tiny bird, to this wonderful world.’
‘YOU! But you may refer to me as Mr Clyptus.’
‘So that is settled,’ Owlf’s voice trilled with excitement. ‘We are all going to a honeybee brunch that is not a brunch made of honeybees, but is bees making a honey brunch. There is a difference you know!’ ‘Wait one minute.’
Owlf flew over to the log, which by now had a big paper sign at one end that said: MAN CAVE—MAN BUG— NO— LADY BUGS—ALLOWED.
17
Plant Care - Viv Benchick @bencikovart 18
TOMATO PLANT
Coffee lines my stomach walls as my body screams for more. Please— something more substantial something more sustainable. As the tummy gets bigger the voices get louder. The gurgles, groans, grumbles and grunts— more more more more more Spoilt brat! Temper tantrums won’t get you your way. To teach it a lesson, I’ll pretend I don’t listen. I water my tomato plant, drowning the roots the water is rotting— pour pour pour pour pour
Sarah Hurst
My face distorted by water stains and toothpaste spit. Disgusting— paint my canvas with thick foundation insecurities hidden with a lipstick seal. Push out my chest and suffocate my breasts sinch my waist until my back arcs and breaks— stop stop stop stop stop If I were made of cloth and twine, I could stitch a new perfection a man-made, natural, monstrous beauty. I forgot to water my tomato plant today the leaves are decaying— snip snip snip snip snip The matriarchal flower barges her way into my life. Leave— she cleans my room she takes out the trash. Her roots sucking my independence. Creeping vine entangling her tendrils around my adulthood— this plant relies on you. She moves it to a window and tries to breathe life into the crusted leaves a mother’s love, warm and kind. She hums to the tomato plant— it’s not your time to die hum hum hum hum hum I rip off the dead leaves, and claw into the soil. Fertilise. The tomato plant needs me to listen. The tomato plant needs me to live. There’s a tomato sprouting— grow grow grow grow grow it’s not our time to die.
19
WOMEN Monique Kostelac
T
here’s a moment in a war that seldom few know about. An unnerving peace, a calm after the storm unknown to those who haven’t experienced it. The moments following the firing of the last bullet, and the fading of the final barking orders. It’s when soldiers begin to retreat from the trenches, and civilians vacate city bunkers. The soldiers walk off their battlefield, a field they played on as children, often with those they were against in battle. Vukovar, a town on the Croatian-Serbian border, saw the first of a conflict that Europe hadn’t witnessed since World War II. The Yugoslav War forced friends to become enemies, turned former countrymen against fellow countrymen. Schoolmates—who had known each other since they were toddlers and who had spent endless nights celebrating the Yugoslav basketball team’s impending global dominance—now shot at one another. Streets and homes they once shared, where friendly gatherings were commonplace with the soundtrack of their local musician—a man often with an uncanny ability to play every instrument he could get his hands on—playing folklore music and the laughter of children as they ran around playing soccer, were now stained with their own blood. ***
I didn’t think I’d be spending the day before my 22nd birthday fighting in a war that had already been going on for two years. After climbing out of a trench, I light a cigarette and lean against the brick wall of a home. A crisp waft of smoke weaves through the winter air in front of me. The sky is a pale grey, a dull backdrop to the crumbling buildings around me. The rain had stopped and started throughout the battle, attempting to wash away the crimson that trickled through the streets. I hear the sound of a stream running nearby and look to my feet, my muddied boots becoming surrounded by a flow of water. I look up ahead and see a neighbour dumping buckets of water on the road. The crimson begins to disintegrate amidst the tiny stones and dirt. ‘Marija!’ a voice calls out to me.
I turn and spot Goran, my uncle, and walk over to him. A cigarette hangs out from the corner of his lips, and his ragged Adidas gear mixed with army camouflage is coated in mud. ‘Come on, let’s go get some food. Teta Mara and all them are cooking up some paprikaš. They told me to get you first because ... Isuse, Maro. Your head!’
My brow furrows and I glance at my reflection in a window. There is a gash that runs along the left side of my head, in line with my ear. I can’t pinpoint the moment when it may have happened; I didn’t feel anything. Perhaps it was the adrenaline. ‘Come on, they’ve set up a nursing station nearby. Ankica is there. She can patch you up.’ ‘I swear, Striko Goran. I have no idea how I got this. I can’t feel anything.’ He chuckles. ‘You’re my niece. I expect nothing less.’
We walk through an alleyway that leads to another part of the village. It’s like a whole new world. Locals stroll through the streets. Soldiers huddle around barrel fires, smoking cigarettes and cackling at shared memories. Children run out of bunkers and into the muddied streets, grateful at their newfound freedom from the captivity. It seemed like life has been rebooted here again. The waning heartbeat has become regular again, pumping life through the town.
20
***
It was the women of the town, and the women of Croatia, who were the driving force behind the army, navy and air force. It was women like Teta Mara who opened their kitchens to cook for the soldiers. Throughout battlefields in Croatia and Bosnia, from Dubrovnik to Tuzla to Čakovec, and all the villages and cities in between, wives, partners, sisters, daughters scrounged up whatever rations they could to feed their soldiers and their people. Many did so during World War II, and now their daughters and granddaughters stood alongside them once again.
They set up canopies and placed the boiling pots of stew on makeshift stove tops. Each weary soldier that had lined up was always greeted with a smile and a boisterous remark that made them feel right at home. Women like Teta Mara knew their boys and girls. She knew each by first name and last. She knew about their families. And most of all, she knew when someone had not eaten. She would hunt them down, combing through the streets and forests if she had to, to give them a bowl of her family’s iconic stew with some bread. Nobody dared to evade her, even if it meant they had to nibble away for hours on end. Then there were the women like Ankica. The nurses, the doctors, those who never got a formal education yet didn’t hesitate to assist at the local hospital. Many of these women are now missing. Nobody knows what happened to them after the JNA attacked the hospital on November 20th. Ankica was meant to work that day, but a day earlier, her youngest son broke his arm when he fell off the swing in their back garden. She couldn’t find anyone to look after him so stayed home. Today, she leads the ground zero triage tents where those who did not have severe injuries could be tended to. This was to avoid using up hospital resources. ***
‘Marija! What did you do to yourself this time?’ a friend of mine from high school, Vlado, asks me as I wait in front of the tent.
I stumble back into Striko Goran as I am met with a barrage of rowdy greetings. Scanning the face of each soldier in the tent, I realise it’s the guest list of my 12th birthday party, from ten years earlier. Boys I had gone to school with, who I had played sports with, one who I actually dated for a time before we realised we weren’t right for one another so remained friends. ‘Eh Vlado, Vlado. You know me. Pretend I skateboarded into a tree.’
‘Again?’ my ex-boyfriend, Edo, asks with his boyish smirk. ‘How many times does that make that now?’ ‘Are we talking literally or metaphorically?’
A resounding response of ‘both’ erupts from all the patrons of the tent.
Ankica strides up to me with stitches and bandages in tow. Her greying blonde hair is tied together in a low bun. ‘Honestly Marija, these boys looked like zombies and then you walked in and now they’re acting like they’re at a disco.’ After Ankica patches me up, I finally grab my bowl of paprikaš. The fragrance of the stew dances around me. Teta Mara makes it her mission to hand me my bowl, and strategically places a packet of oblatne behind it so nobody else can see it. I thank her and then make my way over to Striko Goran, my brother, and two of our cousins. ‘Seriously though, Marija. What did you do this time?’ My brother queries with a mouth full of food. He thinks that because our parents are on the other side of the city he can get away with being an ill-mannered grub. ‘Brate,’ I begin. ‘I honestly have no idea.’
We share a smile and finish off our bowls of paprikaš in the warm comfort of the tent.
IN WAR
21
A
nd I think there is a cool change coming soon,’ the crinkle-cut cellophane radio whispers to me. The man is telling me that there has not been rain for months, that his newborn doesn’t know that the sky can be wet. He is telling me because I am the only one here, everyone else is somewhere they can breathe. The room is sweating just for me. Through the doorway I can see a single fan on the kitchen table next to the fruit bowl. Holding the oranges, now soft and sweating also. I sink into the couch, cracked leather sticking to the underside of my bare thighs, and watch a fly hover over and then land on my freckled knee.
I drift in and out of consciousness. I close my eyes for just a moment, then all at once I am gone, in a dreamland of downfalls and persistent relief. Suddenly there is orange juice dripping from the sky, sticking to the street sides and my love’s cheeks. Her hair honeyed and soaked drips down her back. Before the citrus rain ends, we swim down the creek and rejoice in floating and summer storms. I don’t think about my home, with its barren drylands or the endlessness of waiting. I simply reach out a hand and watch the rainfall and notice how everything here is still growing. And then I wake, and I am back in my one-bedroom apartment, alone with the peeling kitchen floor tiles and broken windows. Gently, I stand and step outside, feeling the crunch of dirt and dead grass between my toes, looking up for nothing. Not for a long time anyway, maybe next month. This drought seems determined to wait it out, to tug-of-war it until the end, for us to be the first to break. Perhaps we will be the ones to crack, along with the earth. Perhaps we will shed enough tears and heartbreak to replenish the land. For now, I go back inside and break open the orange flesh with my thumbnails, tear and squeeze into my mouth. I don’t bother to wipe my lips; the juice dries quickly. I move back to the couch, resume my position, staring, and waiting.
Jax Bulstrode
22
BURNT ORANGE SUMMER
Baba Yaga - Belinda Hearn @belindahearn_
23
Morning Light - Katie McClintock @katiemcclintockimages
24
MOTHER NATURE Jason Winn
From her noble heart, she casts out a thimble of her gifts She must plead for the blood to replenish her children Forgiven in their naively ardent youth, they are the planet’s nexus In spite of the rain, the ground still ruptures in fissures of dead hope
Hollow creatures bow their splintered minds and mourn for the green Perhaps she must be forceful and wring the colours dry Her fingertips atrophy from such an aged torture Oh, true Mother, you have fallen from such heights Such a delicate trauma from beyond your celestial bloom The acrid smoke ensnares your lungs of foliage and heart of earth Defeat doesn’t suit your once gilded boughs of fruition Nor does it shine from the murky waters dulled with refuse Permit us a chance to redeem and render such dangers no more Let the birds glide in unborrowed skies of blue Let the plants entwine in rich soils Let the world imbibe on life For it is given as it is destroyed, sculpted by hands of cruelty We must be aware of all that we kiss into oblivion If not for the continual thrum of her cries Then for her tears, mourning all that’s already lost
25
Mt. Hotham - Katie McClintock @katiemcclintockimages
26
Himani Dias
MARGARET
Decades past her story, she told me … Her father fed her rice balls Remember with a pang, the way she said ‘If only they were here now’ Sixteen’s not many years To finish playing with books Decades later, she told me … She’d wanted to be a nurse Donned in ethereal white Eighteen, she made a pretty bride Cheeks still fresh and rose-hued An army medic, three decades aged Standing by her side She told me she wanted to go abroad Learn crafts, skills and more In all her ninety-four years on earth She never left the shore Young bride, new mother To eleven and then, to ten … She started befriending loss Not too many leap years past A huge motorbike, the only souvenir Of a husband lost too young when Ten children, nine unmarried A riot inside her and out Now, I know—how she picked up Walked miles back and forth Crafting clothes, weaving leaves, ploughing fields And feeding broods The sheltered daughter, the weathered woman I knew her in her sunset years When the strength in her arms Was the memoir in her veins Her hair had streaks of white And her eyes danced with slate-green rims She never told me in her own words Her wrinkles, closed lids and grin sang To me, then and now Of her phoenix tears
27
wordly ONLINE
The Deakin Writers Club is a community of writers, readers, editors, and language lovers. We hold regular events where you can work on your writing, sharpen your skill, rave about your latest reads, gain insights into the industry, form new friendships, and just have fun! To join our community, sign up at the dusa.org.au/clubs page or scan the code!
28
If you’re feeling inspired and would like to see your own work brought to life, submit to WORDLY Online! We publish non-fiction, fiction, poetry, reviews, news, and anything else you want to write! Submit directly to wordlymagazine@gmail.com or express your interest in becoming a regular contributor or in joining our journalism team here:
Wish you Well - Melissa Bandara @mel.dineli
29
VOLUNTARY POSITION Anders Ross
E
ven your vocation is the work of a miserabilist, a volunteer historian (think ‘custodian’, whatever that means) at the Roxy. It’s the last theatre of its kind. Perhaps with good reason, you think often, looking upon the dust-mantled walls and faded paintwork of the once glorious art-deco picture palace. Someone, years ago, chipped away the heads of the seraphim of the friezes—ratbag kids from the local comprehensive probably. They were never replaced. You were swift to ask for a complete restoration, going so far as to pledge your own money, drawn from your late wife’s estate.
You were naïve then, calling the production office at Pinewood. Films today (all gratuitous sex and violence) do not attract nor demand any sort of secondary attraction at the theatre. So long as there is some triumphal American theme, comic book ambiance, and the chance to buy an outsized, overpriced soft drink, then you’d say the movie is a winner. The kids don’t want to see The Egyptian with Edmund Purdom anymore. No. They want something that gives them a wisecracking star. Yet there was one day, in weather and form quite ordinary, that changed your mind about all of this. The misery had even dissipated. Yet, you know that what happened and what continues to happen surely means the men in white coats are not far away. The morning was beautiful, although in your waking melancholia as some bone-idle Frenchman would shrug, you did not see it. The sheer ocean-blue sky could be seen through your bedroom window, the burning golden sun with angelic corona behind it. The blackbirds heralding a new day, one perching upon the empty planter box sitting on your windowsill. You did not notice anything.
However, what happened on this bright and beautiful day gave you the chance to forget your misery. At least until the hallucinations (yes, that’s what they must assuredly be) wore off—the choir of voices you hear more and more each day, starting in the morning, and the friendly faces that greet you later on. For starters, at breakfast when you made your bowl of porridge—cold and lumpen as you like it, it’s a vanity to eat it warm after all—you found a bag of raisins in the pantry that you swore was not there before. ‘Sun-blessed sweetness,’ you found yourself hushing as you might have done to your adoptive son in his infancy, the dried fruit ringing off the sides of the bowl.
Then there was the walk to the Roxy. Your feet did not hurt for once, which was wonderful. For some unknown reason, you could not help but step into a little stroll—the hum of music in your ears, your eyes gazing upwards to the heavens. What a sight! Long fingers of clouds, white like driven snow before a pool of turquoise sky and golden sun. It was almost enough to set you on a path straight for the outdoor baths at the leisure centre, but you remembered you had a job to go to.
30
As you neared the dilapidated theatre, still prepossessing under the right light of course, you began to hear cheering voices: ‘Hurray!’ said a well-dressed man in a crimson double-breasted suit to a welcoming throng of people outside the foyer. ‘Masterly, masterly,’ agreed a rangy woman standing beside him. The well-dressed man’s wife perhaps? It was as you drew closer to the central awning—Egyptian in style (via Birmingham) with inlaid gold, long since faded or stolen, and now badly painted over—that your memory sought to spoil the raillery.
There was of course no meeting of the theatre trust scheduled for today. There were no fancy-dress parties or private screenings being held either. Who are these people? Intrigued, you patted down your rumpled coat and dusted away any dandruff from your shoulders, pulled your lapels together under your chin and into the crowd you went.
‘Good grief! Harold?’ It was not long before someone thought they recognized you. ‘It is you! Don’t pretend you can’t hear me now,’ the rangy woman from moments earlier stepped closer, the aroma of violets teasing your nose. ‘My, my, you’re looking well,’ the woman looked you up and down. You felt your cheeks redden. You hoped you were not wearing your stained shirt. As the beautiful woman playfully moved her head from side to side, her bright eyes widened as she spoke, introducing you to her husband, ‘You’ve met Beric, haven’t you?’ You absentmindedly brushed at your sleeve. ‘You’re cut from some fine cloth there, Harold,’ the couple remarked in a cut-glass chorus, watching you grope at the plaid fabric. ‘But I feel awfully underdressed,’ you bowed your head.
The woman made a face of mock surprise. ‘You are such a card when you mash like that, Har. Go and look at yourself, in the mirror over there.’ At that you followed to where she was pointing, finding the tall looking glass beside the box office.
You had seen it before in pictures. It was black and white—an installation for cinemagoers to inspect their finery after screenings of The Lady from Shanghai. The hall of mirrors scene, you knew, was famous. Most men back then believed they were Orson Welles, and the women Rita Hayworth, but that was 1947. The mirrors, like much of the Roxy, were lost to time. You turned to look at your new friends, thick in the milling crowd. ‘Go on!’ they gestured for you to turn around. And then it happened. Your hair, thin and white, was restored to its original thick, youthful, chestnut. Your face, pock-marked and severe, relaxed into its former plump canvas of hope. And your clothes? The egg-stained off-white shirt, olive slacks and ill-fitting raincoat had transmogrified, as you did, into the uniform of a confident man. Hardy Amies wouldn’t know himself to look at you now, able-bodied in a wide plaid check suit, brilliant scarlet shirt and patent leather shoes. You scarcely saved yourself from adjusting your part line in your shoe’s reflection against the rich, vibrant red neon of ROXY spelled above you. ‘Come on,’ you felt the familiar embrace of your late wife envelop you from behind. ‘I didn’t notice you, so smartly-dressed as you are, Harold,’ she said. ‘You gave me such a shock.’ Taking her hand, soft and warm, you decided to stay here, in whatever dream this was.
31
Quick Dip - Katie McClintock @katiemcclintockimages
32
KINGDOM OF PLASTIC Waves rolling, stagnant in the wind, Filled with immortals drifting. Vessels, packaging from far distant ports, Forming hills, mountains, lands. An age everlasting, a world now discarded, Born from the blood not the fruit.
Daniel Matters
These rivers ran slow, though never to their end, From pumps, new blood was produced, Now found in forests of iron and stone, Shaded in smoke and in smog Where the gas and the oil are cut, shaped and stamped Into idols of the era they began. Yet the ocean of wrecks builds ever greater, Wrapped with the other undead. Bones of the earth hardened in fire, Grains of the desert now jewels. Together their kingdom, watched by white dragons, lasts forever unbreaking. For the dead cannot die, cannot rot, only linger, Reminders of need and of waste. Our salvation, the worm that waxes and wanes, May stomach what decades would take. For in the end it’s by their hands That the kingdom of plastic decays.
33
Wrong.
I feel her when I cover my arms, when I instinctively conceal my stomach, when I act bubbly so people won’t know I’m flat. I see her when I commend other women’s confidence but can’t muster my own. I hear her when I laugh off fatphobic comments. I come face to face with her when I pull my shirt upwards to reveal underneath what feels like a horror scene of slashes that ravage my frightened skin.
FRIEND OF MINE
Loren Rae
S
elf-hatred is a friend of mine. If that’s how you could define her constant presence. I remember meeting her when I was just a little girl, maybe shy of nine years old when, I noticed that my tummy poked out from my favourite green and pink sparkly skirt, when I noticed I was the only one wearing glasses at dance class, when I couldn’t run as fast as the skinnier girls. You would have thought I would have left that imaginary friend in the past, right?
My body feels like a crime scene. Like I have police tape over me, saying ‘do not come near, do not touch, do not enter.’
We’re all survivors of a pandemic; we fought, we sacrificed, we changed in order to live. But for some reason, my body still feels like a disease. With the culprit of transmission being the infection of media, expectations of gender performativity, and the ever-changing and unattainable vision of perfection that is needed just to feel wanted. For so many years, that is what the experience has been, so it fell into a singular question: am I wanted? Or more than that, am I worthy of being wanted? My mind, which has been moulded by generations of expectations, tells me no. Every day, in every moment. No, you can’t wear that, as you’ll look bigger in it. No, you can’t go out running because you’re too slow. No, you can’t participate because you don’t deserve to. No.
The word puts a heaviness in my chest. I can see the word connected to my body shame by a road. A road which has been paved, painted, and driven on for years by tabloids, social media, diet culture, and body-shaming. It feels as though I will forever hold onto that shame-driven resentment, stopping myself from living life for years to come.
It’s only recently that I have truly started noticing the way my loved-ones flinch when I say something horrific about myself, all because sitting with self-hatred is a regrettably comfortable place for me. I am only now noticing the years of self-deprecating humour, not just chipping away my confidence but bulldozing the building-bricks of my soul. I am crushed, not moving, not breathing. Only believing that somehow, someway, I will survive here. I won’t.
If I stay here, I’ll die.
So, perhaps it is time to take a turn. Get off this road and drive somewhere else. Respect that a pandemic occurred, and that my body moving from straight sized to plus sized is simply that: a body that is moving. That I have permission to live and breathe, experience and participate, and love every day as I am. If one turn lets me understand that my passion for loving others should equally belong to myself, then the turn is worth it. Wish to walk through life without believing that my weight defines me, that I have value as I am. I hope that others who are close with self-hatred learn to leave that friendship behind. I hope we can all stop covering ourselves as if we aren’t magnificent. And whole. And so beautiful. I hope we can learn to break through the black and yellow tape. That we can respect that we faced something of nightmares and still emerged strong in the daylight. I hope we learn that love is the antidote. And that with that cure we realise, I like I am realising, that we are wanted. Wanted by one another, wanted by ourselves, wanted as whole, learning, and transforming beings.
34
Self-hatred is no longer a friend, and yet not an enemy either. I simply no longer have room for her. Not while I have, or hope to have, myself in all beautiful tremendousness, and within that, all the love and desire that I need. I am whole. I am a friend of mine.
Presence of Mind - Abbigail Smith @nommie.e 35
THANK YOU Melissa Bandara James Barnett Viv Benchick Jax Bulstrode Alf Ciriaco Patricia Clarke Becky Croy Himani Dias Catherine Fitzgerald Rebekah Griffin Sheridan Harris Belinda Hearn Jessica Hinschen Sarah Hurst Sharmila Jayasinghe Monique Kostelac Daniel Matters Katie McClintock Blair Morilly MK Pinder Loren Rae Amin Rajbanshi Elisabeth Roberts Lauren Robson Anders Ross Sini Salatas Abbigail Smith Samara Tapp Jessica Wartski Friederike Wiessner Jason Winn
w
