Storyclash

——————————————–
First published in the Canadian Underground Arts & Culture Magazine “Ukula”
——————————————–

Midnight by the flyover near Hanover and Grand Fields and if you listen closely enough you can hear the music pouring out of each car passing through the lights overhead. Just listen. Make out the guitars, the drums, hear the chorus. Pick out the tune. Its usually chart music, compilations, Best Ofs and shit but every now and again you get a classic you haven’t heard in years, like an old album track or flip-side or dance tune or something. I love that. Not knowing what you’re gonna get. What’s gonna play. What you’re gonna hear next. I love that. It’s like rooting through someone else’s record collection when they’re not looking, slipping a few inside your coat . .

Continue reading

———————————————————————–

First published in the literary anthology:
What Happened to Us These Last Couple Years? – An Anthology of the Bush Years, 2000 to 2008
Contains essays, fiction, correspondence, art, photography, humor, and poetry.
Edited by David Barringer

———————————————————————–

Holding his breath now in the damp single room of a side-street hotel only a hundred yards or so from the mortar fire, he locked himself in concentration. His mind on single track, focussed, sidelining the blasts outside as he sat poised, holding the bartered scalpel blade over the steam of a kettle boiling over. Ready now. Trembling slightly. His nerves, his fingers like fuses ready to trip, poised to any sudden movement, ready to pull back from any sudden sound. In a dim lit room without heating, in one of the few buildings left standing he folded himself up under the bare 40watt lamp, leaning over the small token table and with the small sterile blade he carefully cut her out of the last photograph. With a little glue and a sterile pair of tweezers he teased her sun-drenched image in amongst the others. Delicately positioning her into the final space right on the edge of the frame as a blast rocked the sidewall, another claiming the street below. Lamps shaking, cries heard, plaster cracking and dust everywhere. Each flake spinning in the half-light like tinsel, falling over the work he wiped preciously clean with his sleeve. The bare white groove on his wedding finger now collecting dust.

Continue reading

His face was like a national anthem. Always had that pride thing going on. Especially when he reached his late thirties but he’d still spit down the centre of stairwells just to watch that little line of silver pirouette to the ground. He loved it. That satisfying pancake sound as it slapped the tiles three or four floors below. He could spit through the gap in his teeth, even though he spent thousands trying to get them sorted. I never even imagined that he could get upset. That he could be sat in tears. Didn’t even think he worried about things. He always seemed so confident. Always had that sales thing running through him, even after work. That competitive streak. Like he was born with it. Like it was concentrated in his blood. Always seemed so sure of himself . . .

Continue reading