Fiction

by Emily Stewart We packed tshirts, thongs and bathers, toothbrushes, croissants and snacks – crisps, oranges. Sunscreen. Condoms, lube and toys. I packed perfume and lipstick, high heels, my diary, Catherine Malabou’s The Ontology of the Accident . Tissues. And he packed chewing gum, whisky, an epipen. I don’t know what else. We were on a beach holiday, a dirty weekend. It was an escape or a tryst or a romp. We were together. We were lovers and we were in love, lovestruck,

by Farz Edraki Meet June Jindabyne. She’s a girl with a not-so-secret secret. Every time something shitty happens (break-up; rejection; loss), she grows an extra layer of skin. No, not a metaphorical layer of skin. A real life, touch-it-don’t-touch-it layer of skin. She’s a girl with one hell of a callus. It first happened one lazyhot afternoon during P.E. in Grade Seven. Picture this: June’s thirteen. Her best friend is fourteen, her mum is forty and her dad died ten years a

by Emily Stewart Give me something honest, like a cardboard heart wrapped in string Make me laugh about ‘it’, meaning everything; I want to play it fake If what you’re imagining is sex, place me in the whip hot tundra where we can fuck and burn for it We came to know each other via the internet. This person I am is raw and innocent 4 u And I will come to any party you want but you gotta hold my hand. no you gotta have some meat on your body. no you gotta know about the phys

by Zoya Patel Great-grandmother Mirambi snorts tobacco from a tin that she keeps tucked into her sleeve. She taps the crinkled leaves onto the back of her hands, and snatches them up with a quick breath through her nostril. The process is repeated three, four times each hour. My sister and I sit across from her in the lounge room, the sodden heat of an Indian summer seeping in through the cracks around the windows. My sister’s lip curls a little with distaste at each tap, ea