Pluck your eyebrows, reduce your calorie intake, choose the more expensive moisturisers, hold in that fart until the elevator empties, let your boss take you out for lunch but wear better shoes and don’t give an inch, download that song your friend said was a good soundtrack for sex, theme your iPhone and leave it on your desk unlocked so people will notice that you are an individual, BOING! an ex-colleague wrote on your wall.
Continue reading “One thing at a time”
Tag: Sydney
Orphans of the Salt
Introductory ‘pilot’ chapter to Orphans of the Salt – a novel in progress
“I repeat—we have arrived at Tract 16.”
Captain Dinh’s announcement was still crackling through the public intercom as Rosco Haymarket hopped three steps at a time down to the zeppelin’s observation deck, a warm bowl of aphid jelly balanced loosely in his hand. “The Royal Caucus” had spent the last six weeks flying over the New Pacific and he was eager to see something other than the curve of ocean and sky. He threw the bowl into a refuse chute and collected a set of scopes from the equipment racks. Two recovery engineers were already at the windows, their heads pressed hard against the reinforced glass. Continue reading “Orphans of the Salt”
Song of a career bachelor
Tug of war, interminable dance,
of reason and controlled device,
of something here and nothing there
with sweaty hands and relentless rope,
I fear that if I take the chance
and release a grip I hold in hope,
I’d fall and interrupt my trance
and betray all terms of my advice.
But at the end this fraying cord,
braced through my neck and up my spine
the nothing here is now something there
with blistered hands and bolted jaw,
I know that if I fought unshored
my failing feet could take no more
I’d scatter all the strength I’d stored,
and let the flag across the line.
Illustrated Shorts 