Category: Prose

  • Fabricated

    Fabricated

    By Alexandra Witting “The policemen had been armed and blockading the streets on the day of the protest.” The man with the tools handed Ishna his small screen. After scanning the vast hall for sight of her manager, she dared to take it. On its surface appeared the title of the article: ‘Australasia remembers: citizens’…

  • Xiào

    Xiào

    by Wen Yu Yang Content warning: emotional abuse The consequence of Shae surviving the car crash is the permanent absence of her parents. Out of obligation rather than love or pity, her Auntie Hua takes her in. Auntie Hua, distant relative, poor and out of luck, is already a single parent raising her son, five-year-old…

  • Brink and Scrawl

    Brink and Scrawl

    by Liana Charles Brink Life, stretching its wingsin two sunbound arcs from the heart,cuts loose the clear breezewhich whips and whirls the world to singone high note: a dartto crack the crust of childhood’s freeze.Breathe in, and step out,for down below the soft world wakes.Each fresh fingertipyearns to trace the dawn’s joyous shout;Each feathered heart…

  • The Snowy Ranges

    The Snowy Ranges

    by Nina Greenhill To the place that calls me, where my heart finally beats, where my breath returns steady; where the quiet is real and strain is gone, where my self will rest, where my soul will live on. It has my love free from duress. It waits and understands. It will call, and it…

  • Parasite

    Parasite

    by Juliet Manolias Over fifty species of cuckoo are brood parasites. They lay their eggs in another bird’s nest and fly back home, while their non-cuckoo hosts are left to do all the work. The resulting chick is demanding. It quickly outgrows its foster parents in size, volume, appetite. It’s a wonder how they keep…

  • Living in Yesterday

    Living in Yesterday

    by Flyn Moss Content warning: house fire, death It’s a small comfort to confront the inevitable. To see our tragedies replay themselves over and over and over again. With a checkpoint and an achievement, you have reached the next second successfully, you have reached the next hour successfully, you have reached the next year successfully……