The Occy Lady

I first met the Occy Lady about the time I started hearing snippets of music on the wind. Three summers ago, sitting on my usual spot, high on the cliffs above the Tasman Sea, with a thermos of tea and binoculars, looking for the northern migration of humpback whales, the wind carried one lilting line…

And Your Bird Can Sing

The thing they don’t tell you about changing the timing belt in an old Subaru wagon is you gotta change the water pump as well. It’s a waste of time putting in a whole new timing kit if you don’t also put in a new water pump because as sure as God made men to…

The Plastic Beach

Sulphur wafted up from the bubbling Santorini island caldera as crowds of young people holding their noses, lined the white cliffs from Oia to the harbour. The nylon sea nets to keep out the rubbish had dissolved, allowing plastic bottles, dirty nappies and garbage bags covered in yellow foam, to beat on the base of…

In Xanadu

For David Ireland While the skid marks of life are happily cosseted in their beach front properties supported by seven-figure investment portfolios, in a country town, which once employed steel workers, there are no yuppies lining up to buy the asbestos-clad weather boards and erect glass palaces Satan would be happy to live in –…

A Beginning

Amree’s sandals were one size too small. His toes ballooned and the heel strap chaffed. They stretched when wet so he’d quickly dunk them in the swimming pool before he’d wipe down the white plastic sun lounges, put the towels out and fish the leaves out of the pool. He liked the first hour of…

In the Blood

The knock on the fly screen door rattled down the corridor of my old rental house like a small stone in a tin can. As I opened the front door, an orange corona appeared around the frizzy henna-head of a woman in her early 60s, as the sun set behind her. The woman had graduated…

The Witch of Goodwood Road

All writers have a witch story which often involves a young boy, a small town, a faithful dog and an old woman. I ain’t saying all of this story is true because I’m old now. When I look in the mirror, I see my grandfather but the giggling boy is still there, spinning his outlandish…

Symphony of the Pots and Pans

Two grand pianos stand in the music room covered in dust. Geoffrey pulled the blanket over his knees. His pyjamas draw string had broken so he stayed seated on the old sofa. Cars passing down Elsternwick road on a wet Saturday morning sounded like a G note sustained in a large, empty concert hall. “I’ll…

The Lantana Code

In a waterless brown land with fat white people fixated on property prices, as the 24-hour news cycle weaves fear and hatred around a tattered body politic, a secret government plan was concocted in the grass-covered bunker of Federal Parliament, to hound the poor of their welfare overpayments, whether they’d been overpaid or not. Built…