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Lockdown 4.0: A Conversation With Myself, Because That’s Where It’s At

Rachel Coghlan

4 June 2021

Here we are once more, friends.
We welcomed you back, neighbours beyond the ring of steel, now we say hooroo again.
We haven’t used those words, this time, have we?
There’s something less fortress-like, now, in the ambience.
I don’t feel like being a warrior battling through, do you?

There’s not much to write, this time.
This is writing about nothing, because there is nothing to write, smothered in The Nothing. Our Neverending Story.
Wish I had a Falcor to wrap me in shiny pink scales and give me hope as luckdragons are meant to do.
My head is one of those cone silencer things you jam in the end of a trombone.

Embrace Australia’s finest writers

Meanjin is open again for subscriptions! Thank you all for your patience as we’ve undertaken the transfer of the journal to its new home.

The next edition of Meanjin will be available from December 2026. Information on the purchase of single editions – in print or ePub formats – will be available closer to time.

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  • In Print
  • Online Only
    • Latest Pieces
    • Reading Trails
    • What I’m Reading
  • Read
    • The Meanjin Papers
    • Poetry
    • Essays
    • Fiction
    • Memoir
    • The Meanjin Interviews
    • Experiments
    • State of the Nation
    • The Year In…
  • Books
    • Reviews
    • Australia in Three Books
    • What I’m Reading
  • Writers
    • Interviews
  • Buy
    • Subscribe
    • Where to buy
  • News
    • Announcements
    • Events
  • About
    • About Meanjin
    • First Peoples First
    • People
    • Editorial Advisory Panel
    • Copyright and Payment
    • Partners
    • Get Involved
    • Contact
    • Privacy
  • Search