(edited by Laura McPhee-Browne) We sat in a paddle boat and ate cheese sandwiches. The water swirled slowly around us. This is nice, you said, and it was nice. The …
The Olive Pit (Lucas Smith)
When Janice agreed to marry me ten years ago, her one condition was that I give up active duty and take a desk job. At the time I was one …
Damboon (Belinda Rule)
It was just Suzy and I, in the end, who drove down to Damboon on the Friday night. I picked her up after work in the big old navy-blue bogan-mobile …
Famous for Asparagus (Jennifer Compton)
I had heard a great deal about the Koo Wee Rup pub, what with one thing and another, so, while I was staying with them, the daughter and her bf …
Werzy (Sean Crawley)
(edited by Laura McPhee-Browne) Most people think that Werzy is my twin sister. I did too, until Mum told us both the truth when we needed our birth certificates for a History …
Breakfast at Bethany’s (Craig Billingham)
Turpentine is a type of tree. How could Martin not have known? He’d lived in Bamberg for eleven years – he should have known. ‘It’s true,’ Anne said, expansively, her …
Numb Enough to Be Removed Forever (Hasti Abbasi)
(edited by Michelle McLaren) I exit Amir’s car at the hospital. My eyes are drawn to a glowing baby in a pram as I enter the toilets. Her mother is …
Fudgepackers (Daniel Young)
“Fudgepackers!” said John, referring to our American corporate overseers. The spaceship-like Polycom phone had only just made a final crackle before falling silent, so my offence at him using that …
Flesh Memory (Elisabeth Murray)
(Edited by Michelle McLaren) Her skin crawled with sweat. She gathered her shirt and let the hot air seethe up her spine, to her bra, to her lymph nodes, where the …
Easily the Hardest Thing (Jane Downing)
Was there any normal anymore? The others in the waiting room were at either end of a spectrum, tottering on an unfair seesaw between the obese and anorexic. The woman …