Fiction

Inside my shoe drawer, my favourite heels had turned green and furry. Wonderful. Pets are good for mental health. I named the mould Trevor. He grew up fast. I gave him the closet and all my clothes to chew on ...

Opening the front door of the house, she realised she had been there before. As soon as her hand made contact with the heavy wood, she felt it. Another party, years ago. Brine smell of harbour water. That green lawn ...

Here was a forest—a city of trees connected through living highways of root and rhizomic thread and fungal filament. The forest was whole and dense and a whole world for other worlds. And in the clearing of the forest stood ...

ALCOHOL A mouthful of ambrosia, a therapist, a vicious debt collector, a recurring bout of neuralgia. My maudlin lover, no substitute for my flesh-and-blood beloved wife who grew tired of my (admittedly somewhat sordid toward the end) dalliance with the ...

I liked my title, which I interpreted literally. I was a visiting fellow—a fellow, just visiting—a person passing through. The centre gave me a desk, and the director, a former US ambassador to New Zealand, put me on the VIP ...

Inspired by The Castle by Franz Kafka No one else alighted the train and Kelsey walked alone towards town and the monolith beyond—a structure she could sense even in the dark. It was as hot as daytime, over 40, and ...

The men did not wait for me to draw the short straw. That I had been born a woman was short straw enough. They stood solemn around the starboard deck and rued as I lightened their load. Down they cast ...

Summers are uncomfortable for a fat kid. The heat makes the whole body stick to itself, layer upon layer where every fold pools its own sweat. For Albert, being shirtless was putting it all out there. No dark clothes, no ...

The cellblock was at the rear of the station, a low-rise, redbrick-and-iron building the length of the yard. Once hammered and charged in the watch-room, detainees were frogmarched along a narrow hallway and dragged across the kitchen floor, through a ...

The front door swings open and my big, jolly dad’s face dissolves from a wide grin into tears in the space of a few seconds. I drop my backpack on the landing of the stairs as he pulls me into ...

Mack began casting spells on the dinghy. She sat next to Aka and across from Jessie, pointing to the outboard where white sea billowed up and down like a curtain, falling into the deep blue. Her small fingers were making ...

The bus turned off the Hume Highway and swung onto the Barton in the heat of the February day. Hazel stared out the window at the road that stretched before. She felt the change as the bus turned the corner, ...

Small rice lamps in splendid colours showed the way. The woman and the foreigner walked past two cars, a boat and a spot-lit carport. An open gate welcomed them to the back of the house. Soft music was playing. Up against ...

Mitchell: 35.21°S, 149.49°E. Light industrial suburb in the Australian Capital Territory. Named after Major Sir Thomas Mitchell, surveyor-general, explorer, legislator, mass murderer. See also: Major Mitchell Cockatoo, Mitchell Hopping Mouse, Mitchell Grass. Mitchell (locality in Queensland), Mitchell (Victorian local government ...

A cleaner was called to an urgent job in a large house in an unfashionable suburb. She was to prepare the house for sale; at the end of the week, a photographer would come to take pictures for the newspaper ads. The ...