A freer state of being

In search of a possible self

Featured in

  • Published 20250506
  • ISBN: 978-1-923213-07-4
  • Extent: 196 pp
  • Paperback, ebook, PDF

We can’t get outside the aura. We’re part of the aura.
– Don DeLillo, White Noise

THE ROAD IS a serpent carving a path through the landscape, coaxing me from Brisbane towards my rural home town in south-west Queensland. The final hours of this drive are always the most arduous, the most dangerous. The novelty wears off, the twists and turns subside; I am left with nothing but a barren stretch of bitumen and my unfamiliar, glassy gaze reflected in the rear-view mirror, the eyes of a stranger I no longer recognise.

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FictionMarty was my algorithm. He told me which internet plan to get. He researched the best conductive wall heater. He chose my clothes every night for the next day. He gave me a list of where I could go on my lunchbreak. Sometimes his decisions were arbitrary, or mysterious to me. But I did not care. It was, yes, like being a child again. And maybe Rachel was right; maybe there was something to that, something deep in my psyche. But all desire came from that deep, dark place of infancy. Your leather penchant is my life-coach-boyfriend-boss. None of us can take the high road here.

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