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The sobber – by Oliver Johns
Fiction Oliver Johns Fiction Oliver Johns

The sobber – by Oliver Johns

Crying is a skill, and I do it exceptionally well. So well, it’s scary. I can’t exactly remember when I first shed a tear. There’s a collection of abstract images: a dropped Cornetto, an overly aggressive peacock, gravelly skinned kneecaps. But they fade in and out. All these memories have melded into a crystallised mound of bad days, something I would need to hack at with a pickaxe – or therapy – but who needs that?

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Gravity – by Morgan Kelly
Fiction Morgan Kelly Fiction Morgan Kelly

Gravity – by Morgan Kelly

He finished his fourth Coke and slumped onto an elbow and a palm. There was nothing new to look at on Countenance – he’d checked. Six times. In the last half hour. Anyone he might have complained to was in bed, go figure. The guys who had dragged him out here had long ago vanished into different corners of the bar. He called them his ‘mates’ in the same sense you might say ‘thanks, mate’ to a stranger. They were the people he saw most often, certainly, but they weren’t his friends.

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Once inside – by Maddie Goss
Fiction Maddie Goss Fiction Maddie Goss

Once inside – by Maddie Goss

He sits in front of a fire, almost life, in a house, a patchwork of frayed could-haves and has-beens. The anger that was once inside is now outside, and the man that was once out there is now in here.

So is the dog, waiting inside to go out.

Once, when the man was boy, he ran and played, small hands tugged, pulled, patted fur and ears with fingers always salty. Now, man smells like something that is not life, pours it down his throat and throws it into the fire. No little hands, no salty fingers.

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Parasites make red pearls – by Lucy Haughton
Fiction Lucy Haughton Fiction Lucy Haughton

Parasites make red pearls – by Lucy Haughton

It was their sixth year at school and the first person in their class, Strillia, had started to Bleed. Conversations erupted in every corner as the children debated when and where they were going to Bleed. Luna took it upon herself to bring her mother’s nail polish in and paint Strillia’s nails all the shades of blood. Crimson red, magenta, deep brown, and baby pink proudly covered Strillia’s fingers for the entire week.

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Flotsam on the drift – by Lonnie Dalton
Fiction Lonnie Dalton Fiction Lonnie Dalton

Flotsam on the drift – by Lonnie Dalton

Upon the frothing current rode splintered ships, barnacled barrels, and one wayward soul.

Crengston lounged on his makeshift raft, whistling out of tune. To be on the drift was a marvellous thing – to be truly detached, basking in nothingness. These waters were strange, but peaceful. The brown, fragrant sea gave the sensation of spiralling down, down towards some unseen centre.

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Why Benjamin Stork broke the ribbit glass – by Angus Macdonald
Fiction Angus Macdonald Fiction Angus Macdonald

Why Benjamin Stork broke the ribbit glass – by Angus Macdonald

Benjamin Stork sent his final email of the day with Kindest Regards, switched his computer to Standby mode, gave the account executive in the adjoining cubicle a small, apologetic nod, passed Zeke the janitor in the kitchenette, smiled, received a radiant beam of teeth in return, stopped, talked to Zeke about the lobby’s malfunctioning automatic door, looked dumbly at his smart watch, learned from Zeke that a special infrared-sensor part was being shipped in from Portugal, finally took his leave, used his ID card to swipe out and expressionlessly looked at the reflection of his reflection in the lift’s mirror…

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Ishbel – by Claire Aman
Fiction Claire Aman Fiction Claire Aman

Ishbel – by Claire Aman

There was a body in the park one afternoon, back when we were kids. Martin and I sprinted home to tell Dad, our schoolbags bumping against our backs. I could hear my blood pounding in my eardrums like footsteps. Dad walked back with us, but there was nothing. Martin and I took turns to lie down in the man’s cold imprint on the grass.

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New purpose – by Alex Bennetts
Fiction Alex Bennetts Fiction Alex Bennetts

New purpose – by Alex Bennetts

She tried her hand at pottery, indoor rock climbing, bonsai. Her palms showed the work of these dalliances, but they always, in tangential ways, recalled the honeymoon. The smashed vase on the bathroom tiles. The unnaturally-biceped man inviting the newlyweds to his room; her husband’s fury. The fronds of the trees that she stood under, waiting for a bus that never arrived. Stems of island ferns cracking in the storm.

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Improving the area – by Keith Goh Johnson
Fiction Keith Goh Johnson Fiction Keith Goh Johnson

Improving the area – by Keith Goh Johnson

Nerys sent another jewelled fruit cake this year with an invitation to spend the holidays with her in Ullapool. Kind of her to remember me and who knows? One day I might go. They’re tearing down all the tenements in Caledonia Road to build high-rise flats. If they continue with all the other streets there might not be anywhere else to go. Improving the area. One can but laugh.

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Good for nothing – by Winnie Dunn
Fiction Winnie Dunn Fiction Winnie Dunn

Good for nothing – by Winnie Dunn

Powerlines hum as heat and dusk swirl together. Gah-gah-gah go the galahs. Pick bits of twigs, grains of dirt and fragments of gum leaves out of the underside of my calves. Problems. Wipe sweat off my upper lip. Problems. Jumping at the clash of fly screen back door, I can’t help but think: No money, all problems. Shadow of an afro carrying a loaded basket floats under a rusty Hills Hoist. Sirens sound in the distance like cicadas. Flash of a red ‘overdue’ stamp searing in my mind’s eye.

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Myer is Our Store – by Gillian Hagenus
Fiction Gillian Hagenus Fiction Gillian Hagenus

Myer is Our Store – by Gillian Hagenus

They call it the long sleep. But it felt more like a micro-nap. Like closing your eyes for a second on a long stretch of highway in the flattest part of the bush, wondering, was it a second, or hours? Wondering, how long would your body autopilot the car in a straight line before your hands slipped off the wheel? That’s what it felt like. Though that’s not how we died. Not all of us.

We woke up in a Myer. Not all of us, just some. We couldn’t fathom how the selection process worked.

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Generation optimisation – by EL Weber
Fiction EL Weber Fiction EL Weber

Generation optimisation – by EL Weber

Camille shivers, exposed. A sterile overhead light buzzes and sends spots into her left eye. Faces peer down to examine her, but it’s the older man with hard eyes and a grim mouth she knows she should focus on. The trouble is she can’t quite place him. Murmurs simmer around her as he leans in. Her heart rate jumps, hands scrabble, splay out and touch something coarse and synthetic. It’s carpet, worn thin from years of overuse; she’s on the floor, in her classroom. She’s blacked out again. Fainted, shutdown, collapsed, experienced an unexpected power loss – whatever you want to call it.

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Afterbirth – by Payton Hogan
Fiction Payton Hogan Fiction Payton Hogan

Afterbirth – by Payton Hogan

It comes out writhing and smelling like meat. It abuses the midwives with its surprisingly strong fists, fighting against the ejection.

I know, I know, we all coo to it.

Our nostrils widen to capture more of that pure animal stench. I lean towards the baby, inhaling greedily of the odour. A familiar pang of jealousy and mourning strikes me momentarily senseless. I've turned the scissors around in my hand, the points facing my own skin. The other midwife is busy, but the anaesthetist recaptures my attention, brings me back to the present.

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The miracle – by Nadia Mahjouri
Fiction Nadia Mahjouri Fiction Nadia Mahjouri

The miracle – by Nadia Mahjouri

Lori believed in miracles. But not the sort them God-botherers bang on about – Dad told her they were all just a bunch of hippa–critts, all fancy hats and hell fire. And anyways, Lori didn’t want their sort of miracles - the type you had to beg for, and wait for, and hope for, and deserve. No, the miracles Lori believed in were the ones she saw every day: the pink soft blossom that swelled and swelled until it was a red ripe apple, the insides of the egg that turned from breakfast to a fluffy chick simply by waiting warm under its mother’s wings.

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Chrysalis – by Lachlan Plain
Fiction Lachlan Plain Fiction Lachlan Plain

Chrysalis – by Lachlan Plain

I was raised on an island of rock surrounded by a sea of sand. Every evening a fine dust blew in from the coast, down the city streets, entering our homes through chinks in our curtains and settling on our tablecloths. Our skin was caked in it. Our lungs were lined with the grit of it.

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The mystery of the lost hours – by Sue Brennan
Fiction Sue Brennan Fiction Sue Brennan

The mystery of the lost hours – by Sue Brennan

How far is it between me and the barn? How many steps? Will my spittle reach that rock? If I walk towards it with my eyes closed, will I stumble? How far will my voice travel? Will it reach Dad in his office? Will he look up from his writing and say, ‘What’s that stupid girl up to now?’ and go back to work?

‘Joey,’ he calls out the window after some time. ‘Get in here now.’

If I cry one of those open-mouth sobs, will I even hear myself?

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Masters – by Andrei Seleznev
Fiction Andrei Seleznev Fiction Andrei Seleznev

Masters – by Andrei Seleznev

The novel was in Russian, that was the problem. Everyone else in my book club had a translation, but I’d wanted to show off, not realising my mother tongue had atrophied. I wasn’t even halfway through. The other problem was that reading Russian on the train felt suspect. What if passengers clocked on to the Cyrillic? I imagined absurd scenes: is that really and how dare you, angry calls to my employer. Only my train crush, two seats ahead in impeccable slacks, wouldn’t care. She’d be unflappable.

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Paan – by Josefina Huq
Fiction Josefina Huq Fiction Josefina Huq

Paan – by Josefina Huq

Our mother is bursting through doors, breathlessly dropping pieces of jewellery across the floor whenever they are not working with her shalwar kameez. She has changed three times, has settled on a blue one that doesn’t suit her at all. To tell her would be fatal. Years later she will wear one again, for a solemn occasion , and it will remind her of nights like this. She will trick herself into missing these nights.

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A major theft – by Emma Rosetta
Fiction Emma Rosetta Fiction Emma Rosetta

A major theft – by Emma Rosetta

Sarge says come back to station right away. Been a major theft. And he says bring him a bacon-and-egg sandwich from Rosa’s.’ Nathan frowned at the radio. ‘What about the theft?’

‘Oh, yeah. It’s not urgent.’

‘The sandwich isn’t urgent?’

‘The theft. Make sure you bring the sandwich.’ Maureen’s bored, staticky voice signed off and the line went dead.

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Devotion – by RT Wenzel
Fiction RT Wenzel Fiction RT Wenzel

Devotion – by RT Wenzel

Mary had tried everything for her broken heart over the years. She dragged herself to individual therapy where she cried at people, and group therapy where people cried at her. She’d tried seventeen types of medication. Some helped her sleep, but none of them put her heart back together. Her son offered an ongoing cannabis supply that dulled the ache, but after a few weeks the anguish returned twofold, along with an ashen mouth and stabbing headache. Mary read books, watched webinars, journalled, and visited a spirit medium who was possessed by a Kiwi accent halfway through their session.

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