Years ago they began to hide treasure deep in your Feeds and For You pages. They’re there too on the last pages of your web searches, at the end of Reel, the last Story there is to see. Documentation for online discoveries of this kind are just as rare as documented discoveries of the real… Continue reading Pot of Scrolled
Windows down and I can hear the kids playing before we pass them by along the side of the school, the buildings flat then tall, loose gravel crunching under the tires. A whistle in the distance and I pull onto the yellow line at the square head of the long thin carpark and Julie and… Continue reading Sparks
Did you know you can tell someone you love them with a gurney? Harry hadn’t done Abigail’s balcony yet for a number of reasons. One of these was that he was not much of a handyman so he found himself overthinking the ordeal. Standard. Abigail didn’t care whether the water went off the edge, if… Continue reading How To Gurney A Balcony
I never should have asked. It was the pink ones I was always curious about and my parents had nothing in my childhood in the way of answers. Not just for that but for a lot of things which I thought for a long time were the reason I fell off the rails. It wasn’t… Continue reading Mallow Vines
Next Sunday, June 2nd, thousands of runners will line up at the northern end of Margaret Street in Brisbane’s CBD. At 6am, the gun will fire and they’ll start the 2024 Brisbane Marathon. I won’t be among them. The plan was to be, of course. For 16 weeks I trained and through April I ran… Continue reading Non-Starter
NB: Hotfoot is a personal essay, not so much short fiction. It was my submission to the Calibre Essay Prize for 2024. It was unfortunately unsuccessful so here it is in the public eye this way instead. Still, enjoy. -- When you start running a lot everyone asks what you’re running from. They’re joking, by and large,… Continue reading Hotfoot
Zac van Manen 