I’m sitting beneath the hot scribbly gum that stands almost dead centre in the play area that backs on to the townhouses, prodding the swelling on my knuckle from when I punched the wall at home. Then she appears. She has on her usuals – ripped jeans and long sleeve top, baseball cap. She stops beneath a low hanging branch of the gum. I watch her long arms reach up …
I “What do you reckon she does all day?” Leah says as she stares toward the verandah through the dust-caked window of the ute. “Who?” Jai says, one hand splayed across the hard rubber of the steering wheel, the other clutching at the gear stick, ready to change gear in the event of yet another pothole. “That old woman, in the house on the rise.” “Dunno. Maybe she watches cars …
Truth is buried in our backyard. It pushes up the weed and paspalum, the wet-the-beds and buffalo. It sucks on the sandy and sunbrown soil and struggles to sprout its revelations. But it’s easier, I know, for us to mow it down. To stand bare-footed with a comfortable drink and admire the behaving turf. It fights with spears and sticks, with bindiis and dewdrop, so why do I prefer the …
‘Fe-lix! Fe-lix!’ the crowd chanted as the next rider trotted on to the arena aboard a chestnut stallion. He raised his crash helmet and brandished it towards the enthralled spectators. Like his horse, the rider had an ample mane of well groomed (and well-dyed) hair that set off his golden (fake) tan. He nonchalantly trotted past the tables of (mostly B-grade) celebrities and lesser royalty sipping their Moet and Chardonnay. …
Skimming stones at Cape Leveque, two hundred kilometres north of Broome, near King Sound, with king tides, the ocean blood red in the evening, sand like white flesh, and an iodine sky. It’s a strange sort of place on the interface of land and reason, where every stranger and every strange thing is accommodated in the tourist season. In short, unnerving. You can hear your own heartbeat. Boy Dog, the …
‘Put the knife down, mutherfucka!’ Rohan smelled the man’s sweat. He placed his knife on the bench and turned to the man pointing the gun at his head. He said, ‘I’m making a Reuben, man. Not cool.’ The man stared at him, the gun shook a little. ‘You like Reubens?’ said Rohan. ‘I’ve never met anyone who doesn’t like a good Reuben. You know why?’ He pointed at each ingredient …
…Welcome back to radio station WQLX Ohio, and now we have a special treat for all those at tonight’s concert… ‘Oh my God!’ said Giselle, taking one hand off the Chevrolet’s steering wheel and pumping her fist.. ‘Turn it up, Sam,’ said Freda from the back seat. Samantha, in the passenger seat, twisted the volume knob to full. ‘I come home in the morning light, My Mother says when you …
He’d left a note in their letterbox – without his name, of course – telling them to cease the noise or he’d call the police. But that night the music was even louder. Mind-numbing drumming, rapping and barking; girls’ shrieking laughter; and that damn screen door, slamming over and over. Behind the feathery curtains a full moon smiled at him patronisingly. Despite the heat he closed the windows, but …
He squinted his left eye when he spoke. It was a look that one might make if they were feeling skeptical. Phil never made that face though. It wasn’t him. Oh dear, a new symptom. It was only last month when he did the jaw thing. We had finished lunch and as we walked back to my car, he wouldn’t stop moving his jaw as if he was trying to …
Roseanna is playing, but it’s not the original. I remember swaying along at a high school dance to that song in 1982. It had a definite beat. This one is the blah version – background music to blend with cafe life – maybe it’s like ‘the coffee blend – smooth, to soothe your day’, or some other magical description. I close my eyes trying to remember the beat – maybe …