The hostage sky
The days spent staring at the sky: in daylight and at night, winter through to autumn, outdoors and from the window, on foot, at the wheel, starry, starless, a half-formed prayer on his lips that he dares not speak.
When he first arrived, he was transfixed by the sky.

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He didn’t identify with anything or anyone but felt sure dragons would understand him. He cut out a map from a school history book—which he shouldn’t have done and which bothered his soul—that had pictures of monsters where the oceans spilt off the edge of the world. And then there was another map that a strange and distant ‘academic’ uncle had given him—a reproduction he stuck over his bed that had words written in Latin that went ‘hc svnt dracones’. On and in that map he found his future as an iconoclast—a defier if not a defiler of maps and […]

Frances thought her bladder would burst; walking the extra two hundred yards to the outdoor lavatory was out of the question. The zinnia patch adjacent to the patio would have to suffice. It was nearly 9 pm, no-one would see.

My boys think it’s uncool to get a lift home from school. They’d rather be on the bus with the others, standing in the aisle with their earphones in one ear and their school bags over one shoulder. Sometimes they try to walk home but I’m worried they’ll hurt their backs, carrying all those books.

It was late summer and the mornings, as Pastor Ethan would say, ‘had a little bite’. We were gathered to see and appreciate evidence of God’s aesthetic sensibilities and say silent, personal prayers. Most days the dawns were good, we could hear native birds from around the river bend. I watched the bottoms of the fat clouds blush. Sitting on the yellow grass, I looked at our cabins arranged in a horseshoe shape around the rec hall and the dining hall and I felt remote from them. Before true daylight, the river looked gold instead of brown. On the hill, Pastor […]

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I
There is shock and horror in the Californian almond region tonight.
—CBS Sacramento
Initial reports suggest ten dead and at least a dozen more injured.
—CNN

When they came to Australia from Sri Lanka, his mother, the doctor whose qualifications weren’t recognised here, became someone her friends wouldn’t recognise anywhere. His mother, the doctor who never wore makeup, took to summer’s white heat in Perth’s baking, bleached suburbs to sell cosmetics door to door. He was too young to be anywhere other than by her side, so, with a button-down shirt tucked into polyester shorts and leather-look shoes on his feet, he walked alongside her. From one white family’s front door to the next. Her customers lived two bus rides away, sometimes three. Three was better. […]

I make a deal with God. He stands on my verandah and asks after my husband. We’re not married, I say. God was passing by, admiring the horses, when he saw the man in the field. A handsome man, says God, but much more than plain handsome—strong too. His hands are as thick as two decks of cards shuffled together. The horses are well trained. I twist a bit of hair that has fallen in my face. I am 20 weeks pregnant. My lover is mild. Every night before we go to sleep, he gets down on both knees. He holds […]

after The election year is when hunger discovered Mikey. Curled up in his tummy like a hollow kitten, purred at the pasty smell of wheat and the acid tomato sauce as mummy Bel said, ‘Just microwave pasta tonight,’ and let him press 2:00 on the keypad. Now, after, the meatloaf is real. Mikey watches it creep from pink to grey. He waves his hand through the slice of hot wind coming round the edge of the oven door. The kitchen is a little bit cool, now the sun’s going. That is the earth turning, moving the window and home and […]