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"What did you bring?" Looking at the table groaning under the weight of 50 million calories, Esther thought about lying but she was a terrible liar, always had been. "What have you got there child?", her terrifying grandmamma used to ask. Despite always wanting to reply "Nothing", she would find herself opening her hand to display her contraband every single time. It might have been a feather, a flower, a teardrop shaped jewel dug from a piece of costume jewellery or a sweet

Ellie turned into the driveway of the home she had lived in for almost 70 years, the gears on her old Subaru creaking like her brittle bones. She wasn't hopeful that much would remain. It had been four days since the fires were tamed after one of the worst weeks of her long life and now she was coming home.   The fence that she and Dale had built together under the late spring sunshine, sharing sips of water so many years ago was all but gone. It had been fixed up so many tim

We start today with questions. Do we jog through life watching others, participating in fewer and fewer things ourselves? Are we afraid to grab life by the balls and just live, even a little dangerously? Did we notice when we stopped living?   For me, it has been a year of change. New location, becoming a student again, getting to know my community, learning about the land. I'm feeling invested in this new life, yet I still feel I'm holding something back. I am often glad whe

Cities can be exciting places to explore. They can hold secrets, whispers in alleyways, ancient trysts. Some are bursting at the seams with humanity, others are islands. They all have their own histories, many of them violent and bloody. This is what we do.   I lost the desire to travel in the time of COVID, when the world ground to a halt as far as global exploration was concerned. I used to love the thrill of landing in a different city, whether for pleasure or for work, bu

It's a conversation opener no? "How are you today?" As automatic as saying hello, goodbye. Most of the time we don't even listen to the response but just assume that, as the person is walking around or looking alert, they are just fine. But what happens if they're not? If they want you to take them into your arms and hug the pain away or listen as they share their story, supplying tissues for their tears. It happens.   It's a beautiful day and you leave the house, checking th

This morning I lit a new candle, a Lemon Myrtle one. It smells divine. My dog is in his usual position beneath the desk as we perform our daily guided meditation. I ponder briefly on how grateful I am to have the luxury of a roof over my head, space for candles to burn and soothe, the companionship of my shadow dog and my wandering dog. In Aboriginal culture, lemon myrtle is used to flavour fish and other foods, wrapping such bounty in the leaves and medicinally to heal wound

"I'm glad a man won. Women are just too emotional to be President." Overheard when Trump defeated Clinton in 2016. Uttered by a woman. She wasn't taking Hilary down, merely expressing an ingrained opinion that running a country simply isn't women's work. I grew up in a time and place where the vestiges of the 1950s tradwife still clung to every yellowing skirting board. Stay-at-home Mums, housewives, never leave the house without full make up and for goodness sake shave those

The best, and sometimes the worst, things are not always immediately obvious to the naked eye. That big oak tree in the back garden, the one you look at every day from the kitchen window, is it really just a tree? Look again. It is indeed a tree, but one that is home to many creatures; birds, bugs, small mammals that nest, sing, creep, crawl and play amongst the branches. The tree likes to hide its age inside the trunk, the trunk you used to try and wrap your arms around as a

Angry woman why do you hate me Because I am younger albeit marginally And far less wrinkly, you should smile more Because my vocabulary is exemplary  While yours is that of a dromedary?  If you were a documentary then It would have been last century  Or even the one before  But perhaps then you would’ve  Been poor, bailiff’s at your door Not listening, not caring, wanting more I look away from you, eyes down Focus on the cardboard sign Thank you for your kindness  Your highne

It was a shift. No. More of a slide, not quite a landslide but a definite movement of the earth beneath our feet. And so it began. Tiny cracks, fissures really, appeared in pavements, on walls, both those already built and those under construction. The builders and maintenance men shook their heads, confusion knitting fuzzy brows together like mutant caterpillars. This went on for a few months and nothing seemed able to stop it. So the people ignored it and got on with their

'Your end is a dead blue wren,' Trent Dalton .   In Dalton's book, Boy Swallows Universe, the main character's mute brother, spells this message out by drawing the words in the air, portraying the tiny, Splendid Fairy Wren as a harbinger of what is to come. Through the many terrifying challenges that Eli faces, this prediction lingers. However, it is the same bird that leads him to discover that which marks the demise of the villains in the story.   This is currently high on

Thick gloves reaching up past the elbows, waders encasing legs becoming weary after eight solid hours of sifting through crap, Cesar was ready to go home. Well, what passed for a home. Just a tent in a city made of tents, in a world that didn't care. He turned, ready to make his way back down the mound of rubbish when his foot dislodged something. Bending down as far as the waders would allow, he reached into the pile and uncovered a human arm, a huge diamond ring still gleam

As the world closed in around us, even the stars refused to shine, making night as black as black. The sun, when it could face what we had done, was watery, almost as if it were crying. And who could blame it?   From my cell, I couldn't see much but I could still observe a square of sky through the steel-barred window. The door opened, not with the usual crash, but gently. A woman entered, tall, statuesque even, dressed as everyone was nowadays in military khaki. She looked a

Bare feet pounding the pavement, arms pumping, heart on overdrive. Ignoring the jagged edges of loose paving stones, broken glass, excrement and other objects, blocking the pain. That wasn't difficult, she had been doing it for so many years. She heard a car turning into the street and felt herself panic. Reaching inside she focused on her breath, calming, soothing. The car drove past, the driver oblivious to her plight, her flight to freedom. In her mind's eye she pictured h

I ponder this morning on the existence of skyscrapers, towering monoliths that crowd the world's cities, some almost cities in their own right. Offices, apartments, restaurants, shops. No need to ever leave. The higher you are, the higher your status, the closer you become to the Gods. Towering apartment blocks with accommodation you can barely swing a cat in. Standing on the tiny balcony and looking across into the identical apartment opposite. Watching the occupants dress,

For the past four weeks I have felt like I was falling, free-falling even. Eight years ago (TikTok) I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I had just said goodbye sweet princess to a beautiful friend, ravaged by the same cruel disease. I spent a grey day in a hospital on the Sunshine Coast being poked, prodded and jabbed. It all seemed unnecessarily clinical, strangely unhumanitarian. For them I suppose it was their everyday, for us it was a day we would never forget. But I surv

We make a lot of assumptions about loneliness, sometimes forcing ourselves onto people who are honestly fine with being alone thank you very much. Perhaps there is a difference between loneliness and being alone. The first can occur for many reasons but is generally done 'to you' not 'by you' and can be a result of a series of abandonments as people exit your life. The second is perhaps more likely to be your choice. You are alone because you have selected to live your life b

Where did my family come from? When? How did I get to be where I am today? Who and what made me who I am?   I have started tracing my ancestry on numerous occasions but I become distracted and rarely get far. My mother once handed me a pile of papers and asked me to shred them. With a writer's curiosity I decided to investigate first. They must have belonged to my grandmother, a woman of little warmth and a love for whisky. Insurance certificates mingled with old photos and n

Hana stomped up the wooden steps leading to her Nanna's house. She was really not in the best of moods, but then she hardly ever was lately. She didn't understand why it was her job to call in every day on the way home from school and make sure Nanna was still bloody well breathing when she could be doing something fun with her friends. Although, after her little outburst today, she was wondering if she would still have any friends left. Nope, Hana wasn't going to feel guilty

It was always cold in the apartment block where the writer had lived for some years now. There was no elevator so he tromped down eight floors to the ground, his shoes stuffed with cardboard where the soles had worn through. Nobody really needed writers any more, or so they had been instructed, and his income had all but dried up. He had a few clients, mainly elderly emigres with arthritic fingers and he penned their letters back home, occasionally wrote a memoir. Today he ha