Seventeen-year-old JD DeMondo is positively flapping with excitement, straining against the straps on his seat. He is inside a giant metal bird. This bird is way up high in the sky. The sky is the best colour. This is JD’s first time on a plane. He got the window seat. He is on his way…
Category: Magazine Content
Trophy Room, Burnby Hall
A warthog twitched its narrow jaws and blinked alive; a hunting dog peeled its black lips. Our ancestors were speaking through them. One asked why a girl had turned her granddad’s photo to the wall. Another begged his son (too late) run home, unplug the generator chugging inside the living room, waking the neighbours. A…
Infestation Miracles
Miracles swarm in the Mississippi delta in summertime. The blooms overwhelm me, reminders of what lives between the lived-in spaces at the limits of my vision. Where do they come from? Who created them? Are they a blessing from above, or a curse from below? Most importantly, should I call an exterminator? * A miracle…
Nebula Girl Is Born
I light a firealthough it is no longer cold.I don’t even empty the gratebut push the ash aside, so the fire can breathe.I make a nest for anthracitewith twigs I have been dryingand, as the fire takes, I hear something – so I look. It’s getting hot and I can’t quite see– so, hand on…
The Train Journey
The journey was peaceful. I closed my eyes most of the way, sat back and thought of all the wonderful things I had done that day. When I opened my eyes the frost was settling on the fields and trees, and the other passengers were either asleep, reading, or eating. When I got to the…
The Lotus Eaters
The endocrines are absorbed by the altered receptors of the brain.Therefore the rodents start to cuddle. It is deeper than the sea, even if it’s a rodent’s brain.Though all mystery can be measured. There’s nothing in the body a surgeon’s knife can’t find. The subjects I’ve observed don’t even notice the needle anymore.We’ve put them…
Best of Drive-Thru
—Welcome to Large Burger. Where the burgers are large and the smiles are on the house. Can I take your order? —Do you have a chicken? —We offer a range of chicken options including our signature Ranch Wagon and Ultimate Chicken five-piece dinner. Chicken sandwiches are also available in nugget form, with a variety of…
He Asks Me to Call Him
daddyand I think what theactual fuck I am olderthan himand the hills so I straddle his lapto have words face onabout howhe might like to finda little girl about howI ama real womanand he whisperssay it so I hear myself say itwearilyand he whispersyou can do better than thatprincess with a hiss on the esswhich…
Bad Behaviour
It starts before your company holiday party, our first fancyinvitation on the fridge. You come in,with a thirty and a few snowflakeson your shoulder. I’m clappingunder my chin, in the kitchenby the ironing board. You kickthe door shut then twirlme to the counter where we crack beers, the iron hissing through teeth behind us then…
After the Parade
Glass crunched under my mum’s car tyres as her Corsa crawled up the road, which had been clean when we drove down it a few hours earlier, before the parades passed through. As the wheels rotated I felt each chip of glass dig into the hard rubber, tearing at the air inside. The tyres fought…