Apartments are cheaper because they’re smaller and easier to pin down and because the deed has less space in which to hide as they bound about the prairies avoiding the hunt. It’s into these fields that the homes go when they’re released like healed animals back into the wilderness by the builders to become prey… Continue reading House Hunting
They made him from the beer they drained under the taps. Sloshing around, he was more ale than lager, the bar in a gentrified place, nestled in the shadow of a stadium and apartment blocks all around. They sat him in the back corner, unseeable from the road but there to find if you poked… Continue reading Barfly
The mice started it. It was their insistence on a few hours of mandatory charging at a time at a minimum rather than what they referred to as the piecemeal standard of a bit here, a bit there, some more over coffee or lunch and then the rest after hours and then all at once.… Continue reading Stationery
She’s pushing on like she’d planned, recording on her smartwatch, planning to rate it not hard but at the high end of medium. She’s sweating a little even in the early spring rainforest chill. It’s early. She’s pushing through the light filtered by the canopies that were closing in. The trees gnarling as she continued.… Continue reading Flight Time, pt. 3
They only bury their dead in winter. From spring to fall they keep them cold, refrigerated in their homes beneath the floorboards. They’re exhumed as the first of the snow starts to fall. The village takes the second day of snow off altogether and they head to the graveyards on the edge of the town… Continue reading Snow Angels
Read part one here. It’s always someone’s responsibility and today it’s his because he’s the oldest and he’s built this all up for everyone and he’s paying — well, indirectly — for them all to be here today but there’s no time to get hung up on anything that’s not what’s coming without warning. Every… Continue reading Flight Time, pt. 2
Across algorithmic feeds all over the internet, content short form and long, you can find The North Pole’s “operations” livestreamed to general punters curious from December 1st to December 24th what happens inside Santa’s workshop. It is, of course, all for show. The mechanised manufacture of toys at the scale that satisfying the world’s children requires cannot be contained inside a single gingerbread house no matter how large or authentic (some of the elves take bites from the walls and doors as what seems like proof but comments swirl in more cynical circles that they might just have the well-rehearsed taste for thin MDF).
They were holding hands. “What would we do?” “We’d walk around the cemetery in the spring sun because one of the best days off that I’ve ever had was a day where I just heightened myself up a touch and went for a run around Toowong and I’d like to do that with you too… Continue reading Steakhouse
This piece will be a WIP. I'm not 100% on it but let's see how we go. -- From: Luke Jackson To: Hanna Bjerke Date: 16:13:47, Sunday August 25th, 2024 Subject: Pen pals Hanna, Welcome home! I’m not there in person to say that, of course, so this is the next best thing (maybe second… Continue reading Pen Pals
It's not so complicated but there are a few simple rules to follow to make it easier on yourself and your household and the dishes too — because this is the way they like it. It’s uncommon knowledge that they negotiated fair and square in the postwar boom of the 1950s, when utilities in the… Continue reading How To Pack A Dishwasher
Zac van Manen 