He had to stop himself swearing because the kids were catching on. “How was I supposed to see that?” “You weren’t,” the crashed into driver said, “but maybe stay this side." The Volvo had bounced off the other car and they were both now shouldered on the side of the motorway. The crashed into driver… Continue reading Indicator
They never otherwise went that high but he was lost and then curious. He found himself at the soft end of an ambient warmth through the air of someone passing through not recently but lately and still up there, somewhere, maybe on the way up, maybe on the way down. He was hungry but that… Continue reading Rook
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
Bear with me. This is translated from provincial Norman, handwritten by farmers, into modern English. It’s not a tale like the Canadian Winnie. Instead this bear had fur as brown as its heart was black, furious and jealous and maniacal about its boundaries deep in the heart of Normandy near the northern French coast. The… Continue reading Camembear
Pizza is as good as old food can get. Attested there in the dying days of the first millennium AD, it’s lasted as long as fresh new ingredients can be found to layer on top of a flat bread with sauce, then topping, then cheese, roughly. Of course tastes change but never has it been… Continue reading A Pineapple Pizza Coup
On alternating Monday nights you take the green bin out with the red bin and the yellow recycling waits for the off-weeks. You remember this because you’re running down the other side of the hill and the rain that threatens to linger has softened the purple flowers to mush on the concrete so you slow… Continue reading Jacaranda
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
He’d dreamed a lot about his end as a grey crackling, loud and deliberate. Between them they were sure it was a fire. When the building’s fire alarms went off, preceded by makeshift orange and yellow visions of her own, it was a return to a life of sorts. A fate the colour of smoke.… Continue reading Newfangled
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
Their language is a strong one and there are few places now in which you hear it in the wild, their homes constrained to the darker dens on the emptying bottom floors of department stores in local malls’ rusting anchor tenancies. As their slow fade to relevance has been tweeted to death far faster than… Continue reading Web Strings
Zac van Manen 