PIECE BY PIECE
PUBLISHED IN ASSIGNMENT: ‘EROSION’
20 DECEMBER 2024
In the morning, Marcus wakes up missing his left arm. It’s gone – ending at the elbow in a flat plane of flesh. Holly lies next to him under the cool cotton sheets, eyes wide, clutching her hand over her mouth. He holds what’s left of his limb in the air, staring at the space where the rest of his arm should be. His neck twitches, blue eyes welling up. Holly wraps her body around him, skin sliding against skin.
PUBLISHED ON SUBLUNARY REVIEW
12 DECEMBER 2024
She tells me she has a hole in her head, and I say, ‘Don’t we all?’ and smile and sip my drink, but then she says, ‘No, really,’ and takes off her bright blue baseball cap, and there it is—a hole in her head.
In the middle of her blonde bob is a circular window of translucent flesh. It’s about the same size as when you touch the tip of your index finger to the tip of your thumb—it’s A-OK. Through it, I can see her brain, pink as a boiled prawn and shot through with thick purple veins, all sopping with blood.
PUBLISHED ON EVERY DAY FICTION
31 JANUARY 2024
Gumtrees stretch over the narrow road. My high-beams find his silver-blue Ford Laser skewed across the asphalt at the end of curled line of skid marks. He’s sitting on the roof of his car in his Nike tank top, sucking a dart through his teeth. He holds his hand straight in the air when I honk the horn, blows a stream of smoke out his nose.
He strolls over and shakes my hand through the driver side window and says, “Thanks, boss,” his gold chain dangling in my face — a tiny gold ingot with a Scorpio symbol pressed into it.
PUBLISHED ON BELLE HOMBRE
15 APRIL 2020
I could see the parts of her that reminded me of him: the high forehead, the bulge of her eyelids, the dimple in her chin. Then I searched for parts of myself: the flecked colour of her eyes, the upturn of her nose, the curve of her lower lip. But it was the other parts of her, the pieces I didn’t recognise at all, that scared me.
I slapped the bird out of her hands. She cried into the crook of my arm as I stroked her hair and stared at the painted sea.
PUBLISHED IN ELEGANT LITERATURE 27: WICKED WONDERLAND
JANUARY 2024
I startle awake – something is moving outside the cabin. I can hear the undergrowth crunching under its heavy steps. There is a pale, eerie light streaming through the bedroom window. My brother is a shape on the bed next to mine, a steady rise and fall under a pile of old blankets. I lie in bed and listen as the thing outside circles the cabin. The snap of sodden twigs, the wet suck of mud, the whisper of a moving tree branch. There is no other noise. No call of a night bird, no skitter of possum claws, no howl of wind. I feel my heart pulsing in my chest.
PUBLISHED IN GHOST PARACHUTE
19 OCTOBER 2019
Emily giggles and my heart clenches. I watch her watching the undergrowth. The birds squawk and flutter in the fig trees. She tries to make a cat sound but it comes out wrong, sort of a ‘muw muw’. She’s never really heard the proper sound before, never felt the vibration of a purr travelling up her arm, never seen eyes flashing in the darkness.
‘Do you think there’s any cats anywhere anymore, Grandad?’
- FICTION WINNER, Grace Marion Wilson Trust Emerging Writers Competition
PUBLISHED IN VICTORIAN WRITER OCTOBER-NOVEMBER 2010
Henry started flying all over the neighbourhood – pin-wheeling and zigzagging across the sky, a darting blur of tweed and Old Spice. People would look up from their garden hoses and barbecue tongs and give him a wave as he scooted through low cloud cover and buzzed the treetops.
When he took off he felt exhilarated. Free. He would stretch his arms wide as he flew, the wind and the happiness filling his eyes with tears. He loved to give neighbourhood children rides – with their parent’s permission of course. They’d cling to his back while he zipped just above the playground, the other children running below them, clambering to go next.