Short Stories

I am a guardian of rubbish. In my white tracksuit, I cycle alone along the streets of Amsterdam and collect the trash that litters this city. With my cargo bicycle full of garbage, I wave at passing nightwalkers that fill the pockets of silence. They pause mid-stride for too long under dim street lights without responding. Why do they wait for me to ride past them? I catch a glimpse of their shadows darting into the darkness over my accumulating junk pile that continues to grow. Now I am unsure if those creepers were ever there at all. It is my duty to keep these streets clean. A pungent smell persistently follows me around town, keeping me company. I know someone is supposed to take over my shift soon because leachate has saturated my clothes. I make my way to the designated spot by the shuttered flower shop and look up at the stars, waiting. After a time, the air becomes too thin to breathe in. My skin feels tight and rubbery. Whooshing sounds of the ocean start to choke my ears. It ...

A rusty white swing hovers over the grass in nanna’s backyard. The ornate wrought-iron shadow remains still and silent in her garden full of geraniums. Our young bodies are too small for outside labour, so we wander to the shade house and wait. But not for long. We drink from the sprinklers that water the fuchsias and squeeze the buds until they pop open.  We take turns opening the creaky door to the grey shed, peering inside to see if a secret portal has opened up for us to escape. Black spiders live in here with the Blood & Bone fertiliser and antique furniture. Our dad’s abandoned youth lives here, too, discarded and mouldy. The musty smell lingers as the sun sets outside and time rests.  As the three of us walk single file along the pavement, ticking echoes from the wooden clock atop nanna's empty fireplace welcome us back into a cold house. We all think this place is haunted. Old newspapers are stacked high in the corners of rooms. Lace coat hangers full of potpourri ...

Orienteering was supposed to save us as children. Part race, part treasure hunt, we read specially prepared maps to navigate our way through the wild to a number of checkpoints. One year, the Whispering Wall was nominated to be on the list. Built over 120 years ago, the reservoir retaining wall overlooking the bush landscape proved to have powerful acoustic abilities.  The concave wall is perfectly curved and forms one sector of a circle, where sound waves travel unobstructed from one end to the other. We soon found out that words spoken at one side of the wall could be heard from more than 150 metres away on the other side. We were captivated. Forgetting about the other checkpoints, we lingered and listened to strangers share their secrets. They sounded so close by.  At the time, it felt harmless to be a passive participant, waiting silently to receive soliloquies from the other side. We compared our scars to pass the time in between intimate leaks. We were too young to under...

Holding a kite, along with the other kids on our quiet suburban street, we run free. Lovers of abandoned places, we leave the familiar neighbourhood and explore the forgotten railway station. We don’t move in straight lines but jostle with the wind. With each other. With ourselves. Still, we share the sky. Weeds stand silently beside crumbling stone walls while we wrestle with tangled kite lines.  We check the wind before flying. Sometimes there is barely a breeze, and at other times there are huge gusts. Licking our index fingers, we point them upwards towards the heavens. The side of the finger cooled by the breath of the blowing wind indicates the direction we must turn our backs on. Instead of taking a run-up, we hold our kites in the air and let the wind navigate for us.  One kite starts to spin in big loops, swirling closer to the ground, it meets the dirt track. We launch kites only to have them fall at our feet. Making slight adjustments to its design, we lighten the l...

The young couple would meet at the beach every Saturday afternoon. I used to watch them embrace from my rock pool. When they began their journey to the secret spot, I followed them around the shoreline, clawing my way up to observe the girl who had set me free. I trailed them, past the marina, past the tissue-box houses, along the esplanade, until they found the lonely table. I listened to them talk over the roar of the ocean about nothing and everything. She shivered during the night hours. I saw them kiss under the lonely table once, but only once. "The whitewash looks like wild white horses running towards us."  "Then let's race them. First one to touch the jetty wins!" "Wins what?" "You'll see." Together they ran, but her long satin skirt tripped her up and pulled her down. She laughed so hard at the sky that her face turned red. Then he pretended to fall spectacularly next to her. Sprawled out, smiling at each other for a moment, the...

“Is it all right you’re up here with me, or would you rather be with someone else?” After our steep climb, clambering over rocks under the afternoon sun, I took a moment to breathe in the view. Australia’s Central Desert is a mix of ochre red dirt with patches of green bush spread out to the horizon. It was greener than I thought it would be.  “No... I’m glad it’s with you.” Surprised by the question after what seemed like hours of sweaty silence. With throbbing dehydrated skulls, we sat down, our legs hanging over the cliff’s edge. We drank from our water bottles and sucked the nectar from nearby honey grevillea flowers. Her uncertainty reminded me of my own inherent self-doubt. We were two young women contemplating whether we should be here, forging a friendship in a wondrous landscape.  Curious about the collective stories of places, I imagined we were actively taking part in the desert’s living memory. Escaping from our perceived limitations and searching for adventure, we...

I capture people in my locale  From living room windows  Trusty old camera  Connects me  To the surreal world outside  Impatiently waiting  For red lights to turn green

A friend of mine Has a cottage In the countryside That is full of ghosts He stays there with his family In the summer The antique walls  Decorated in remnants of the past Protect its kin At night When the cottage takes a deep breath And sighs at the new world outside Everyone gets goosebumps And knows  It is time to leave 

Stories are also a form of imaginary travel, a way of traversing the landscape of the mind. In his book, Sad Topographies, Damien Rudd writes a chapter on non-places, specifically gas stations. It took me back to a forgotten story in my timeline of memories, some 20 years ago, when I celebrated New Year’s Eve at a petrol station.  I had a friend who worked the night shift at petrol stations around the outskirts of Adelaide. I think the money was decent but not worth the hassle of dealing with the unruly behaviour of late-night customers. I was surprised to learn how many people would fill up their car’s petrol tank with fuel and then drive off. Mind you, this was the early 2000s, so security was not what it is today. The money that was unaccounted for would have to come out of my friend’s paycheck, supposedly incentivising him to keep an eagle eye on his customers. The job stressed him out, but it gave him the time to think about where he wanted his future self to be. A petrol stat...

White fluorescent light  Radiates across the canal  My sensitive eyes squint  At the irritating incandescence  Flickering  For moments For hours I curse its presence  The elevated glass tardis Where the light lives Floats against the cerulean sky Ingratiating itself  With the neighbourhood  But a rooftop dweller Glares furiously behind the blinds At my windows During the night

My mind Is a landscape of layered history But my stratigraphy is clumsily understood Bioturbation  Concentrated in the fine-grained upper parts  Is where I remember  I am how I interpret what happens to me Alluvial deposits  Found in the lower parts  Is where I forget Because my mind is involved in a process  Of erosion and decay My body Restores forgotten memories  And is my home that forges meaning  It tells stories of who I am Narratives Waiting to be shared Waiting to be remembered  An existence created out of a need to belong

It was cold on the ferry. I climbed the steep staircase and followed the sun outside. Ocean waves moved in slow motion against the gusts of wind that whipped my hair back and forth. The sound of the wind negated the sound of breaking waves. The ocean was the colour of blue marble; white veins streaked its surface. I stared down at the livestock in transit, transported from the island to live out their happily-ever-after lives in an abattoir. Cows and sheep were all lined up in two separate pens. Some of the cows looked up with wide eyes, knowing what awaited them. Sheep bleated and shuffled; one tried to jump over another. The salty air was charged with nervous energy. The momentary revelation that death was coming for these furry souls brought on an uneasiness that settled in my gut and made me retch. Clouds gathered over the mainland, projecting shadows that left dark green patches over the hills that became clearer as the ferry inched its way across the marble sea. I bowed my head a...

She woke up whimpering on the blow-up mattress inside the dark tent. Her tears had trickled their way down her chin. She wiped her face with the back of her hand as he comforted her with gentle whispers. He listened to her recount the horrid nightmare of women and children being marched off a cliff by cruel men, a colonial massacre with smouldering fires and black smoke. The sounds of the waves and wind from the beach soothed her back to another time on a ridge in another town, with nothing but blue cheese and a starry night. During the days that passed, they would stare at the sea in silence. Her twenty-something-year-old palimpsest heart, filled with a white-hot rage, abated as they drove along the coast. Then it was time for them to leave. He came all that way to save her, but she didn’t want to be saved by anyone. She wanted to be alone. And she was for a while. Then everyone disappeared and became obscure memories in the vestibule of her mind. But when he came along and smiled her...

On Saturday, I attended a talk by Roger Hallam . He is one of the co-founders of the Extinction Rebellion movement that uses civil disobedience to protest against climate change. While Hallam might have come across as an alarmist, his depressing discussion points were on point. We should all be worried about climate change and the slow rate at which governments are taking effective action in the small window of time we have to reduce carbon emissions that contribute to the climate change abomination awaiting us all.  To calm down my existential anxiety, I took a deep dive into the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report . Supported by more than 100 scientists from 52 countries, the report assesses the latest scientific knowledge about climate change, desertification, land degradation, sustainable land management, food security, and greenhouse gas fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems. Three striking insights I came across in Chapter 7 involve Indigenous and local knowl...

Things are documents of their time. Things can be reinterpreted in the present. Things can acquire a new meaning in the future, but the future can only be built on the remains of the past.   When I was eight years old, our class placed things into an airtight container, a time capsule, my teacher called it. We buried it within our school grounds. I contributed some drawings and my favourite eraser. The idea that people would come across our time capsule one day, perhaps hundreds of years into the future, impressed me deeply.  Soon after, our school closed to accommodate a nursing home. It was built directly over the time capsule burial site. As far as I'm aware, the time capsule remains buried on the hill slope where I used to play kiss chasey.  My siblings and I had to transfer to another school.  Growing up, I would read to my sister and brother from the Harver Junior World Encyclopedia Set from 1971. We would flip through the pages and venture to exotic place...

She balanced herself on the bridge railing that connected the car park to the shopping mall. Her long skirt billowed out around her. It was an overcast Sunday afternoon. Alison and I walked towards her, towards the bridge. What was she doing? A balding man approached us. Don’t get too close. I think she’s going to jump. Oh. Fuck. He edged his way forward. I didn’t hear what he said to her. She looked down. She looked in our direction. She was young; she was our age.  Don’t. Please don’t. I couldn’t read her expression. She appeared calm. Her dark hair was blowing around her face. I thought, for a moment, she was a performer. I closed my eyes then she disappeared. The balding man’s face turned scarlet red. No. No. He asked us if we were OK. I heard someone scream in the distance. Don’t look. Don’t. She was lying in the fetal position, fast asleep in the middle of the street. I don’t know if she survived the fall. Tears pricked my eyes. Alison’s mouth was hanging open. I gripped her...

Another tsunami. Fucking earthquakes! Fucking climate change!  You know, I don’t think there has been a proven correlation between climate change and increased earthquake activity. Don’t the melting ice caps, accelerated by climate change, have a cyclical relationship with rising sea levels that have a knock-on effect on the movement of tectonic plates that cause earthquakes? I’m sure I’ve read something about it. Really? Show me. Seems like the perfect way to start the holiday season. Unlike many large tsunamis, the recent one in Indonesia was not caused by an earthquake. According to the National Disaster Management Authority, the tsunami was caused by an underwater landslide resulting from nearby volcanic activity, exacerbated by an abnormally high tide due to the full moon.  Fucking volcanoes, then. In a recent study, 138 volcanoes have been identified throughout the deep basins of  West Antarctica . If the ice acts as a protective layer, what happens when the ice mel...

The recently published Australian Femicide Map is the saddest map you will ever see.  It was meant to trigger an emotional reaction.  I searched for my hometown. And then it came flooding back.  Memories. Half-truths. Disorientation. They were young. His attitude was getting worse. He was always stressed about something: his job, his car, his studies, his gay father, his Christianity, his future.  She gave him a free pass. He gave her a black eye.  She stayed out late. He threw her down a flight of stairs.  She joined a club. He threatened her friends.  He punched a hole in the door but told her that he loved her.  He wasn’t always mean and she wasn’t always afraid of him.  But she became cold and distant. She didn’t recognise herself. She would lie.  She would hide.  She would cry.  Some say the more optimistic someone is, the happier they’ll be and the longer they’ll live. But maybe some of us have no other choice. Without op...

Last week the 'What ISH Post-Capitalism?' festival offered discussions on the future of economics and society, expressed through music, dance and debate. Some issues included doughnut economics, sustainable living, grass-roots activism and climate change. “Until it’s knocking on my door, I will continue to live my life.” Fair enough. Scientists agree that the rise in global temperature over the last several decades can be explained by the rise in greenhouse gas emissions caused by human activities. However, some people still feel that the existential threat of climate change isn’t real enough for them yet. One presenter that caught my attention was Marjolein Jonker, a pioneer of the Tiny House movement in the Netherlands. Since 2016, Marjolein in het klein has been living in a self-sufficient Tiny House (20m2) in Alkmaar with her cat Hella. She is passionate about living sustainably and leaving behind a smaller ecological footprint. Marjolein is part of a wooncoöperatie, a hous...

It’s almost 3 am. I squint at my feet in the shower while hot water washes over me and notice a shadow within my shadow. I move back. One shadow. I move forward under the bathroom light and a darker shadow within my shadow appears. Why hadn’t I noticed this before? My shadow has a shadow. Surely this is a metaphor for the darker side of our inner nature? I shiver at the thought. I need to go to bed. I was fascinated by my own shadow when I was young. I remember one evening, in particular, running up and down my grandparents’ driveway, lit up by the white light of the full moon. I could see my night shadow. I befriended her. I even tried to outrun her. But she was my equal. She became my companion when everyone else went inside. I spoke to her. She was part of me.  As I got older, different shadows came to visit me. Those night figures were not my friends. They would float from the dark hallway and glide over to me. They would lurk by my bedside and reach for my face. They scared me...

Have you ever thought about what ideas you use to think of other ideas with? For example, Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, that all life is related and has descended from a common ancestor, is an idea that has been used to think of other ideas with. Darwinian evolution is a method of explaining changes. His ideas dismantled the notion that humans were miraculously special. Over time, there was room for variation that transformed the beliefs people had about themselves.  For Darwin, the idea of variation existed in random mutations that produced adaptive changes to form new life - a concept of natural selection for environmental adaptation. But the ‘mutation’ from his discipline was the beginning of something new in society, without losing any of its original quality; the new ideas people had about themselves as a species. That’s why it is relevant which stories tell stories, which concepts think other concepts or which systems systemise systems. They can lead to meaningful ins...

I recently learnt about Het Groene Boekje (The Green Book) which was produced in the Netherlands during the early 1950s. The book is a glossary of the Dutch language that defines the official spelling of Dutch words. It was created by the Dutch government for institutions to use, including schools. It has had some revisions over the years. For example, pannekoeken (pancakes) is no longer the right way to write or say the word. It’s now panne n koeken (pan s cakes) because there is no one universal pan that makes the pancakes, so the word has changed to reflect that concept. It seems nonsensical to me. This made me think, who else has a set of official rules for language? France has the Académie française, or the French Academy, which was formulated in the late 17th century and refers to the French council for matters pertaining to the French language. Then I thought about language affecting culture; is this one way to centralise a country and a nation? Is this how we internalise contro...

I attribute my restlessness to a book I’ve been reading about brain surgery by Henry Marsh. It’s raising an episode of existential angst in me but in a good way. Marsh’s experience as a neurosurgeon takes a raw look at what it is to be human. I sympathise with Marsh’s patients and admire his talent for sharing stories that illuminate the functions of the brain and capture its complexity. It seems that we take our noggins for granted. The idea that I can have my brain operated on and be awake to see it, a feedback loop of my brain looking at itself, blows my mind. We may be a bunch of biological and chemical processes, but there is magic in that combination. Marsh touches upon patients that become vegetative or have locked-in syndrome after surgery. In that type of state, the brain can be teetering between consciousness and unconsciousness. I think it’s fair to say that there is a poor quality of life in having no control over your own body. The consequences are ultimately left to famil...

There was an atmosphere of mysticism and mythology at the  Roadburn  festival two weeks ago. I noticed that most of the bands I saw portrayed various landscapes in their visual backdrops (CHVE, Buried at Sea, Jakob), along with ritual imagery and dilapidated buildings (Dark Buddha Rising, Amenra). Photos: Tim Bugbee What I gleaned from the musicians who were interviewed at Roadburn was the combined notion of people working together to create ‘authentic’ music and experiences that go beyond preconceived frameworks.  For example, Neurosis spoke of their musical process as being a type of religious journey. Wanting to retreat into a cave to get in touch with nature and their music, Neurosis creates something shared from within, taking it out of their heads and directing it at the audience. Neurosis mentioned with all honesty that in their former years they considered the audience to be their enemy. However, now celebrating their 30th anniversary, Neurosis no longer view us a...