• Reality Crept Into Her Psyche

    Dreaming of X caused her trouble. She would awake to a kind of altered reality in which they were together not here, but in a very familiar version of here. X was gone – maybe off to work – but their paths would cross soon enough.

    Her manner of speech would change to suit this new reality, in the same manner it tended to change when she spoke on the phone to clients. The edges of her accent softened, her tone became warm and accommodating. She assumed an air of self-assurance and it drew others to her but she rejected their advances because she would soon be reunited with her love.

    However, the day would unfold with no messages from X. No emojis blowing digital kisses. No sweet nothings. The power of the fantasy depleted like a draining battery as reality crept into her psyche and took command once again. They were not together. The romance was a fantasy.

    She would return home to find the apartment empty. The only bric-a-brac belonged to her. She had only sleep to look forward to.
    Asleep, she would see X for sure.

    X’s lips tasted the sweetest in dreams.

  • Her Jeans

    It was hot enough outside that all I could think about was taking off her jeans.

    MY jeans!

    … my jeans.

  • My Usual Table at Wheat Cafe

    This is one of my favourite spots to read: my usual table at Wheat Cafe. It’s just downstairs from the day job and the ham & cheese toastie is on point (don’t forget the mustard).

    I’m still reading The Corrections even as I keep getting distracted by other books. It’s a good problem to have, but I’m knuckling down now.

  • Nostalgic For A Place I Have Never Been

    The signal changes but I’m not on board. The train moves ever forward but I remain standing. At the end of the line friends will meet at a cafe and enjoy the breeze that always rolls through the suburb at four o’clock but the air here is still. They will reminisce about other afternoons spent in the breeze but I cannot participate.

    I am nostalgic for a place I have never been.

  • Today Is An Exciting Day

    Today I officially start my PhD at the University of Technology, Sydney.

    Today is an exciting day.

  • The Tires Were No Longer Humming

    She had only noticed how little light there was inside the car when two headlights appeared down the road and illuminated the entire front seat. Stray beams of light made it all the way to where she was strapped into the back seat.

    “Look at this clown,” her dad said. She looked around but didn’t see any clowns. Surely all the clowns were still back at the fair.

    Grace had never driven a car or paid much attention to the motion of cars other than the ones being confidently coaxed along by her father. For this reason the headlights of the oncoming car didn’t appear left of centre and even if they had it wouldn’t have struck her as odd.

    “Honey!” came a shrill scream that could only belong to her mother but it was hard to tell over the terrible shriek of rubber grinding on wet asphalt.

    The beams of light that had found their way to the back seat now ran away in an unnatural manner and there was a long moment of calm that Grace would never be able to forget. It was a calm that spanned generations and transcended all linear perceptions of time. It was a black hole of silence and still that absorbed all energy before regurgitating it back in the form of a loud percussive smashing thud on the side of the car.

    The whole car lurched sideways and Grace became aware that the tires were no longer humming on the road. All momentum pulled her body to the left and then she felt the same weightlessness she had experienced on the swinging pirate ship earlier in the afternoon after her second orange soda. Her third orange soda was splashing in her face but she didn’t know why.

    She felt her weight pulling on her seatbelt as the can of soda slipped from her grip. The entire car groaned. She could see a tree out the windshield but it was upside down and that didn’t make sense to her.

    After the sight of the tree there was only dark.

  • More Of A Slip

    It wasn’t so much a jump that was required – more of a slip. A fall, really. A perfectly timed fall and he would be on the tracks just as the train pulled into the station.

    He could think of a dozen reasons to execute such a manoeuvre. Yet she was the only reason that had him testing the traction of his shoes on the edge of the platform.

  • Sweat That Ignites A Fire

    She is sex incarnate and the whole room turns toward her to draw that conclusion for themselves. A long silk dress with a floral print navigates the curves of her body and clings to her legs as she descends the stairs. A belt balances this whole elegant show of grace, drawing dozens of eyes belonging to both men and women upward toward slender shoulders that support a neck down which drops of sweat can be seen to be running. It is sweat that ignites a fire and it can be traced backward up her neck to the base of long blonde hair that frames a face of youth and lust.

    For a long moment the room is transfixed but eventually the toe-to-head examination arrives at her fedora and the bustle resumes without missing a beat, as though it had never been disrupted.

  • Little More Than Stick Figures

    Now he was being trusted to give an opinion. He felt a strange amount of responsibility to offer sage advice that would steer her down the correct fork of the crossroads to choose. He could see that she was talented, but it was also true that…

    “You’re right, Lyle. I get it. Thank you.”

    She stood quickly and tore out the page of her notebook that contained her poem before handing him the notebook itself.

    “Maybe now it’ll help you.”

    He took it with unsettled bewilderment and watched her dart out the door, nearly bowling over another bohemian walking his dog.

    He was still in a bit of shock and began to flip through the pages of the notebook. He stopped when he found a page toward the front with a sketch of a man in a tailored suit carrying a takeaway coffee cup and a bag not unlike his own. Behind the man were more men in suits that featured fewer and fewer details as the queue extended until they were little more than stick figures. At the top of the page were scratched the words “The Last March of the Lyles”.

  • It Was No Democracy

    He never understood the politics of the situation or, at least, he wasn’t willing to accept them. One omnipotent ruler watched over his moves, his neighbour’s moves, the moves of everybody that surrounded him and toiled as he did. It was no democracy.

    Who elected this man God?