I woke up on the 1st of January this year in a double bed spooning two of my friends in their dad’s apartment in a small town just out of Sydney. I’d spent New Year’s Eve doing the coffee table dance competition with my top four Myspace friends after the COVID restriction hammer was dropped…
"I need to buy some bin bags to shit in or there'll be an explosion in the night," said my fiancé of one month, roughly three-and-a-half minutes after we’d packed our life's possessions (and dreams) into our little commuter van.
This suddenly brought to my simple mind a question. Do you really know the person…
When I arrived at his dilapidated treehouse, I complimented Michael on the taxidermy snake he had draped on his kitchen window sill. I found comfort in its lifelessness, its alien body, the intricacy of its scales.
Michael, slowly dragging on his cigarette and puffing out dragon-like smoke, crossed one thin leg over the other as…
Hints of sweet honeysuckle and mint. Crisp forest dew and pine bark, damp. Soft touches of wood-like nectar circle the air, subtly paired with a burnt caramel popcorn.
Tasmania’s winter aromas linger as they dance harmoniously on the tips of my nostrils. Raindrops fall, softly decorating the surrounding flora. I sit on our aging…
Young families are plentiful. Kids play on bikes and tradies dash about. Seemingly everybody has a dog. The area is much like a maze, but you finally arrive at the outer rim of a newly built housing development site. Look outwards, and behind you are individuals living simple lives in their simple homes, unaware that…
"Farkkk. Well, there go our winter holiday plans.”
As Gladys announced the NSW-Victorian border closure, I felt my heart sink. It wasn’t unexpected, just another shitty trick in the shocking magic show that has been 2020. I closed my eyes. The spark of hope that had been a planned roadtrip during an otherwise dreary year…
Every good road trip starts with a morning after pill. The morning after pill is basically the same as time travel and is particularly good bought from a pharmacy in a one-street town just off the highway three hours inland from Sydney.
The road started to wind as we ate pies and ascended into Kosciuszko…
“Eating is a spiritual practice, and if you do it right, it will boost your health and your mindfulness.”
Vaḷḷi, a female meditation guru with a shaved head and clinking anklets, is giving a short lecture on Ayurvedic beliefs.
“It’s all about your personal dosha, the energy that circulates throughout the body. You have to…
Because I cannot bear the thought of spending New Year’s alone, I get in a car with a friend and two others I’ve never met before. One of the strangers is driving.
We’re travelling to the other side of Melbourne, an hour and a half away, to a suburb I’ve never been to before, to…
In 1994 in Melbourne, Australia, my dad sat in peace. He had marched and fought, and now could return to the country he’d left, with pride and without fear. 13 years later, we were packed up and heading across the world from our life in Australia to post-Apartheid South Africa. *
April 2007 The anticipation…
Dear Officer,
I am writing to you as I sit grappling with the dilemma of whether or not to pay the $423 fine you issued me with for not wearing my seatbelt correctly. I am unsure whether paying a fine for an offence I did not commit or going to court in the remote South…