The night sky from the surface of Mars

Well, first off, it’s not home. Your sharp intake of breath  tells you that, as you clock the horizon-to-horizon stars  from the...

Emily presents

MEG IS ALLOWED onto the tarmac to watch the unloading. It is a vast, empty space at this time...

Frederick the Great

When he was young, Frederick the Great tried to flee his tyrannical father By conspiring with his best friend,  A young...

Reflecting light

DAYS FROM NOW, when the ship pitches so hard Jesse is woken being tossed from the bed, he’ll remember...

My mother disliked the sea

My mother disliked the sea after we arrived in Australia. She would say, ‘Four weeks on a ship. Waves. Waves. That’s all...

Walk

HE WALKED DOWN the seething streets of Fortitude Valley. It was 2.30 in the morning of a Saturday night and...

Vavan

LOOK AT THAT lamppost by the newspaper kiosk. No, not the one where the bike is locked. The other...

Pidgin

Now Pidgin didn’t say much to nobody, but he was different around his feathered friends, and also with me, coming to overlook my human bits. Plus I never poked fun at him the way others did, about the slowness, the bung eyes or walking like a string was tied from his ankle to the back of his nog – you know, pidgin-like – or being good with nothing else but bird things, which never holds much bargain for others, and they’ll want to tease and knuckle what they don’t get. Truth is I was in love with Pidgin, not that he knew – though it could have been mooch, since he was always calling me up.

Displaced

THE DELICATE RED filigree of the sea fan coral looked like alveoli in lungs, Clare thought as she kicked...

Camelopard

MOST OF THE time, I know I’m human. There’s a buttoned flap to fuss with when it’s time to eat,...

Tyranny of distance

Letter to Nardi

When I lived in Dubbo the riverbank was a place where the school you attended or what your house was like or whether your family could afford to run a car hardly mattered. For blackfellas and whitefellas it was a place free from authorities...