Like every morning, Siobhan goes down to buy a Coke Zero and to smoke. The first thing I hear is the click of the lock as she leaves; I think it’s right to say it wakes me.
M
Matilda had a thing about arrivals. On planes, even when not working on foreign policy, she wore tailored suits and carried a valise, as if on her way to an important meeting, or in the event of becoming ejected, disembodied over enemy territory, needing to command as much respect as a man, as Roosi, for instance, or any of her colleagues. Nothing could be done about shots fired by narcissistic young men. One had killed her brother. And now she found herself alighting from a taxi at the head of the circular driveway to the Grand-Hôtel, Cabourg, looking as bourgeois as […]
Avulsion
Avulsion by A.S. Patrić
Of Burnt Photos and Old Friends
Beyond the glass enclosure of the pool, past the herb garden, city lights bristle at the seams of the sky. Out at the edge of a nature reserve, this house stands at a gentle gradient; on nights when the moon is on the rise I get a tidal view of tree heads standing tall like sentinels at the borders of my house. At two in the morning, Hajj and my two youngest boys are asleep inside. The back yard is still, its silence punctuated by the occasional roar of tyres turning on the road in the distance. Underneath a cauldron, […]
Taken Home
Jack sometimes slept on his back, one arm flung across, face buried in the crook of his elbow. He lay still, hardly breathing. Their bedroom might have been any room, anywhere, but for the smell of wattle-blossom coming in through the fly-screen.
No Toes
‘She keeps her eyes on me, but slowly her eyebrows come down and she mumbles, ‘I’m not a ganga.’ Then she unpacks her McChicken…’
The Best of Meanjin 2017: Fiction
In its long history Meanjin has had the honour of bringing some of Australia’s finest voices to readers—and what form could be so involving, so transportive, so seductive, as the short story?
Moonlight in Vermont South; or
Also Starring Bob Hawke as Himself
The Blue Car
They laughed, uneasily. Every hour one or both looked out their kitchen window. The car remained parked, most likely with the man inside, but from the first floor of their space-age block they could not be sure.
Lantern
Jesus-fucking-christ-what-a-stupid-fucking-cunt-of-a-thing. Keithy’s frog body slapping rock, air oomphing out of him. Snapped rope pinging. He posted up, back leg slipping. Wrong fucking side of the creek. Lantern, the boy, nursed his arm, shivering. Dirt and grass clumps in his hair. A wind gusting theremin. The swollen creek, a painter’s hand under a running tap, from brown to red. Algae blue green. Flood plain black. Ribs stinging. Could he jump it? No, no, no. Palm heeling his forehead. Tap, tap, tap. Could Lantern? Tap, tap, tap. Could he throw him? Bone discus spinning. No and fuck no. On the right side […]
Leaden Heart
A story based on the escape attempt of George ‘Billy’ Hunt from the convict jail at Port Arthur, Tasmania.
Beacon
By the time mum pulls into the station, Levi is about ready to piss himself …
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