On Dit Issue 89.8 (Hearsay)

89.1 Y R .8 RUA ER 89 B E B F O OCT

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L5 Union House 8.30am and 10.30am, Tuesday to Friday during the Semester

Brought to you by

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editorial src VOX POP ECON DIT LEFT RIGHT CENTRE SEX IN THE (SMALL) CITY

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Articles & creAtive writing ALUMINI NETWORK WINE TASTING TAYLOR’S COMPLAINT FRESHER. MAGAZINE BOOK RECS ARTIST FEATURE: ELLIE CHEESMAN POETRY GIRL A CONTRACT OF BLOOD and dagger barren rains dawn intentions on call what if it actually worked? sfumato ocean song-cycle anti-plastique postscript by the author: this poetry priZe aIN’t it a magic undone t.s. eliot in the ligeRtwood toilets the frogs the first time he asked the kangaroo and the fifth boy the riverside sonnet

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editors isobel Moore Stasi kapetanos michelle roylance ivan jankovic design ISOBEL MOORE cover art‘ ellie cheesman SUBEDITORS GRACE ATTA LAKEISHA WATKINS TOM WOOD konstantinos zekyrias HABIBAH JAGHOORI NGOC LAN TRAN MAYA TLAUKA RORY SPEIRS LIA DEVETZIDIS KIRSTY KITTEL TIAH BULLOCK BECK ROWSE GEORGia PENGLIS DEAN PLESA

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W

e wish to acknowledge and pay our respects to the Kaurna people and their elders past, present and future as the traditional custo-

dians of the land on which the University of the Adelaide resides. Their

cultural and heritage beliefs flow deep and steady through the land and burn bright within the Kaurna community to this day.

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Interact with our socials, read our digital issues and articles, or send us a pitch at onditmag@gmail.com

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photography

Ellie Cheesman

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EDITORIAL Let me tell you a story, with letters on paper, with paint on a canvas, with thread on a loom, with words on my lips.

We absorb and produce stories in all that we do; they define us as a species, as individuals and are the basis of our social constructs. They allow us to learn from the past, dream of the future, and escape from the present.

There is nothing more captivating in all of human creation than a story.

That is why I am overjoyed with this special edition of On Dit. Our team has put together a little bit of magic within the pages of the magazine you're holding, and your fellow peers have given a little bit of their souls to help us create Hearsay.

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Welcome back to our lovely campus (virtually and f2f) after the holidays!

The university announced the Draft Change Proposal (DCP) recently, which represents the next step of the Organisational Sustainability Program. I have heard your concerns and know how passionate people are about student services, especially the Maths Learning Centre. Rest assured I am continuing to work with the university in various forums to ensure students are not impacted in the process.

Another important project I have been focusing on is the assessment and feedback strategy. The goals of this project is: to ensure all students experience assessment tasks that are authentic to practice in the discipline and align with academic, professional and employer expectations; to avoid assessment overload and maintain an effective balance between formative and summative assessments; to design assessments programmatically; to ensure students can demonstrate progressive attainment of program learning outcomes; to integrate assessment and feedback literacy development into student learning, in all of our academic programs; to promote the development of students’ digital capabilities through assessment and feedback and benefit from the affordances of digital tools and technologies; and to ensure strong assessment security measures are in place for summative assessments that are critical to demonstrating program learning outcomes.

Your Women’s Officer, the AUU President and I have help formulate and promote the National Student Safety Survey that ran recently, independently through the Social Research Centre on behalf of all Australian universities, where a random sample of 10,000 students at our University, selected by the Social Research Centre, were invited to participate in the survey. The survey will provide the University with important information that will give us a thorough understanding of what is happening in our student community and help us to build on the work we have undertaken since the last one in 2016.

I understand our international students are very keen to come to Australia and I have been working tirelessly on the international student return plan on every possible avenue. I have advocated for this heavily and following up on the issue regularly. One of the major constraints is that the federal government has restricted approval for the plan to be only proceeding when there is no state lockdown. The possibility of removing the constraint is now being investigated.

Last but not least, wherever you are, please make sure you get vaccinated to help protect yourself and everyone around you if you are able to. I participated in the COVID-19 Vaccine Roundtable with the National COVID Vaccine Taskforce recently to help ensure international students are better supported and have access to the important information on taking up COVID-19 vaccinations.

Questions/suggestions about the SRC/university? You are always welcome to email me or send me a message through social media!

OScar zi Shao ong SRC President

oscarzishao.ong@adelaide.edu.au facebook/wechat id oscarong1997 9

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Jess Graham Bachelor of Psychological Sciences

1. I don’t know if I have a favourite form because each lends itself to

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story-telling in different ways which makes a fair comparison seem really hard. It kinda depends on how the medium is used, too. A very good storyteller can make something beautiful and powerful out of even the most difficult medium for story-telling, and a poor one can make a boring story out of a medium that is traditionally easy. That said, I think I am especially fond of the written word because you can’t really get the same precision and description in story-telling from other forms.

One way is through cooking. I love using recipes as a loose scaffold and then incorporating my own ideas as to flavour or presentation as the meal takes shape. Sometimes a single wellchosen ingredient can utterly change the outcome of a dish (either for better or worse) and I find playing around with these combinations to be fun and exciting, like throwing paint around on a canvas.

I really like Ernst Haeckel’s “Art Forms in Nature”. Haeckel was the first Professor of zoology in Jena, and an avid champion of Darwin’s theory of natural selection. A lot of his work celebrates the beauty and magic of organic symmetries found in nature, which I have always considered astonishing. Because of Haeckel’s scientific background, his work also offers insight into the biological structure and truth of organisms, which is an apparently rare combination in art. For a good example of Haeckel, I send you to one of the most reproduced plates in Art Forms in Nature, the Desmonema annasethe, a species of medusa jellyfish native to the coast of South America.

I enjoyed “This Is Your Mind on Plants”, by Michael Pollan. In the book Pollan traces the diverse and culturally rich histories of three widely used mind-altering compounds: caffeine, mescaline and opium. My favourite story from the book is Pollan’s own experience of growing opium poppies in his backyard and writing an article about it for Harper’s. Several times throughout this story Pollan contemplates losing his house and possible jail-time as a result of the FDA crackdown on home-grown opium. Ironically, this is all going on against the backdrop of a pharmacological opium epidemic in the USA.

Nick Birchall Bachelor of Law 1. Definitely love a good ballad.

2. Continuously rearranging my room..

3. In love with the Wombats. Haven’t released a bad album yet.

4. Season of Storms by Andrzej Sapkowski.

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What is your favourite form of storytelling? (eg. prose, song, graphics etc.)

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How do you best express your creative side?

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Who is your favourite artist (music, author, painter, photographer, etc.) and why?

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What is the best book you’ve read this year?

Oli Fulcher Bachelor of Science (Advanced) 1. Music, especially whole albums based around one story.

2. I play guitar and am starting to learn to sing. I often find myself procrastinating by writing lyrics then working out guitar and bass accompaniments.

3. Hard to choose just one, but I would have to say Dominic Harrison (Yungblud). I love his music, but more so I love his attitude towards his fans and the way he preaches equality, inclusivity etc.

I finally read Michael J. Fox’s memoir, Lucky Man. It is a great read about his journey with Parkinson’s and how it changed the trajectory of his life for the better. I have a chronic autoimmune disease, so the overarching messages are dear to my heart.

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Larisa Forgac Bachelor of Laws and Bachelor of International Studies

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I really like anything that combines multiple styles and forms – I read On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong recently and I really loved how his style as a poet showed in his prose. Though I guess if I had to pick, I’d go for poetry!

2. I personally love drawing and painting and I think it’s a great way to de-stress and take my mind off of uni work. The old ‘a picture says a 1000 words’ saying very much applies to me because I think I can express my emotions better through art than I can through writing – though I do write short stories from time to time.

I’ve been going through a bit of a sad girl phase so Phoebe Bridgers is just playing on repeat at the moment. I also have to give a shoutout to my all-time favourite writer, Donna Tartt, who I hope will write another book soon because I really need another good dark academia novel, and nothing has really lived up to The Secret History yet.

Oof it’s a very close tie between Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin and My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell. Both are pretty dark reads, but the prose is well worth it (bonus points if you can score the really pretty Penguin edition of Giovanni’s Room).

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econ dit words zac grant

At an outer Melbourne social hall in 1948, Bathurst train driver, wartime treasurer, pipe connoisseur and sitting Prime Minister, Ben Chifley, revealed the Holden 48-215, affectionately known as the FX. The FX was a triumph; an Australian made car for suburban families, representative of Australia joining the modern industrial world. The FX also represented Australia’s ability to transform itself using the lessons learned from a time of crisis. The car was designed in the United States, a wartime ally and trading partner, it was built by both immigrants and native-born workers honing the skills they learnt during the war, in regional and suburban factories that once built tanks bound for the Pacific Theater. In 2021, Australia is again in crisis; Covid-19 caused Australia’s first recession in 29 years and continues to dog its economic recovery. Australia should not aspire to recover its pre-Covid economy.

Like it did during the war, Australia needs to learn from this crisis to create an economy for the times in which we live.

Immigration, industrialisation and integration were the most important lessons Australia learned during the war that revitalised its peacetime economy.

Continental European immigrants changed Australia’s Anglo-Celtic culture and its economy as the government sponsored immigration in response to wartime fears of invasion. Many of these working-class people came from the factory floors or the farming fields of the most advanced industrial economies. Mass immigration

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brought new skills to Australia and kept wage demands modest in the post war period. It also allowed Australians to engage on a personal level with societies in Southern, Central and Eastern Europe and, eventually, with Asia, forging trade and cultural relationships that furthered Australian prosperity.

Through the Lend-Lease program, Australia was one of few countries net exporting food, textiles and military hardware to the United States. With American investment and technological support, Australia industrialised during the war. Thanks to the efforts of state governments, most notably in South Australia and Queensland, industrialisation spread throughout rural Australia, bringing economic modernisation to communities once completely reliant on erratic income from agriculture. Industrialisation during the war led to a huge increase in physical and human capital in urban and regional Australia that could easily be used for civilian production, as seen in the FX. While manufacturing eventually fizzled, the wartime influx of capital was key in Australia’s peacetime success, later supporting Australia’s ability to exploit and export its natural resources.

After getting out of the passenger seat of a 15-year-old Ford, Australian foreign minister Bert Evatt was refused entry to the UN General Assembly in 1948. He was also its president. Following the war, in which the country learned to make new

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military and economic alliances, Australia played a major role in a globally reintegrated market society. Economically, the Australian government found new trading and investment partners; first in the USA and later in Asia. This led to further influxes of capital as well as the gains from trade sorely lacking before the war. The prosperity borne out of war shows that Australia can prosper in the future from the lessons learnt during the global pandemic.

If the lessons learnt from the war were immigration, industrialisation and integration, Covid should have taught us that international cooperation and pragmatic adaptability are the basis for a post-pandemic recovery.

While the Australian government’s call for an inquiry into the origins of Covid-19 are legitimate, the way in which Scott Morrison and his foreign minister, Marise Payne, called for it was reckless. Australian goods and services were slammed with restrictions by the Chinese government (or rather, Chinese consumers “decided” not to purchase them). The lesson from this is clearly cooperation. Postpandemic, Australia needs to look outward; communicating, trading and cooperating with a coalition of like minded countries and institutions while looking for new markets in Indonesia, South East Asia and the Pacific Islands. The pandemic fully awakened Australia’s business community, government and consumers to over reliance on China and the decline of global cooperation. Going orward, Australia should look to form diverse trading alliances,

especially with countries in the Indo-Pacific.

Australia’s government and people have learnt to adapt. The pandemic forced a fiscally conservative Liberal government to embrace deficit spending, helping the economy recover quickly in the second half of 2020. Yet, as an election approaches, the Liberal party remains short sighted, aiming for a "gas led recovery", focusing on paying off public debt and a return to neoliberal normality. The Labor party is not much better; the party of Chifley and Hawke seems unable to push visionary policy. The government should have learned from the pandemic that the Australian economy is adaptable; deficit spending should not be scary, a transition from non-renewable resources is possible, and strong education is needed to promote outward looking, productive and modern industry.

The Australian people, as well as businesses, have also learned of their own adaptability.

Many are now able to operate online at the drop of a hat and many have become more receptive to strong government economic intervention. From Covid-19, the Australian people, supported by a reinvigorated, competent government should refocus the economy such that it is caring, adaptive and ready for a new modern, post-pandemic world.

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What are your thoughts on the impending retirement of long-term German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the first woman to head Germany's Federal Government, also considered to be the 'leader of the free world' for a time?

AUKUS, the trilateral security pact between Australia, the UK, and the US seemingly centred around nuclear powered submarines, has ruffled some feathers. Is this deal all it's cracked up to be?

Premier Steven Marshall has promised to open up the interstate borders once we hit an 80% vaccination rate projected to occur before Christmas. Is this an acceptable plan or are we all endangered by this?

left: Socialist Alternative

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Good riddance. Merkel was not some progressive hero or counterweight to Trumpism. She imposed devastating austerity on Greece that smashed the health system, wages and pensions. Merkel, after initially accepting thousands of Syrian refugees, quickly cut deals with the far right Turkish president to halt migration and began mass deportations back to war-zones. If Merkel was good for anyone, it was for the German capitalists and the EU bosses’ club.

Australia acquiring nuclear submarines would be a disaster. By escalating imperialist rivalries with China, AUKUS pushes us closer to a war that would bring riches to the bosses but threatens to kill millions of innocent people. Liberals, Labor and, shamefully, SA Unions have fallen in lockstep behind expanding the death industry. We should completely reject this Faustian pact.

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Every one of the 100 billion dollars spent on war industries is a dollar ripped away from hospitals, schools and climate action. The US alliance must be torn up. Workers and the oppressed globally must work in solidarity to resist all pivots toward imperialist war.

Marshall’s reckless reopening is a deliberate effort to put profits before health. According to the Burnett Institute, if lockdowns end at an 80% vaccination rate, we can expect hospitals and ICU wards to be overrun, leading to over 2200 deaths. Doctors and ambos are warning that the health system is completely unprepared for an inevitable COVID surge if borders open. Ambulances are already ramped outside hospitals, unable to respond to life-threatening emergencies. Even when overall vaccination rates reach 80%, Indigenous people will be at massive risk, for whom vaccination rates are below 30%.

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centre: labor club

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right: liberal Club

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Irrespective of where you sit on the political spectrum you are on, Chancellor Merkel was a formidable political force, both in Germany and within the European community. As a key economic power, Germany under Merkel presided over an unrivalled dominance within the EU. Regarding political decisions, she made a very brave decision to admit and settle over a million refugees into the country despite internal backlash that ultimately cost her party a significant amount of seats in the following election. A remarkable person despite her conservative stances on a few issues.

Details of this deal are few and far between at the moment. While on paper it seems like a good idea, there is a good chance that jobs will be lost from existing shipbuilding contracts and diplomatically we have angered our traditional friends the French. As a result, depending on what the exact arrangement is, it could be beneficial to Australia or it might not be. Time will tell.

I think our attention should really be to follow the appropriate advice from people like Nicola Spurrier, who has led our pandemic response which has kept SA safe for so long, as the other states suffer through protracted lockdowns and rising case numbers. If the medical advice checks out, then it would be appropriate to open up. However if the medical advice is to remain locked down until a higher threshold of internal or interstate vaccinations then we should not open.

Angela Merkel has served as a pragmatic and erudite Chancellor o Germany since 2005. Prior to becoming the first female Chancellor in German history, Merkel served as Minister for Women and Youth, Minister for the Environment and Nuclear Safety and Secretary-General o the Christian Democratic Union o Germany. During the Immigration Crisis in 2015 Merkel consistently called for her fellow European Union countries to show more solidarity and unity after she expertly managed the influx of over 1 million refugees into Germany. She remained steadast in her approach and exemplified the characteristics of a true democratic leader. This feat afforded her the title of “Leader of the Free World”.

Merkel also spearheaded and subsequently

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introduced a host of centre-right economic, social and environmental reforms, which have seen Germany continue to grow and thrive as a nation. She has been a terrific leader of the German state and provided stability and certainty on a global scale, particularly in what has been a tumultuous time in global politics.

The AUKUS is a security pact between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States for the Indo-Pacific region.

The agreement is guided by the states’ enduring ideals and shared commitment to the international rules-based order. The agreement resolves to deepen diplomatic, security, and defense cooperation in the IndoPacific region, including by working with partners, to meet the challenges of the twenty-first century. It is in Australia’s security interests to build on these longstanding and ongoing bilateral ties. The first initiative under AUKUS is to acquire nuclear-powered submarines for the Royal Australian Navy, a defence project which will see the creation of thousands of jobs here in South Australia - more than under the French contract. The AUKUS agreement will help sustain peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region as well as provide further industry within South Australia, something that we need in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. For more than 70 years, Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, have worked together, along with other important allies and partners, to protect shared values and promote security and prosperity.

As Premier Marshall has done for the entirety of the COVID-19 pandemic he is listening to the health experts and governing, in accordance with their advice. A zero COVID-19 management strategy is unrealistic and unattainable. The reality is that COVID-19 will never be eradicated. We need to learn how to live with the virus. Our borders cannot stay closed forever. It is hurting the South Australian economy with many small locally owned businesses suffering as a result. If we want to return to a point of reasonable normalcy this includes re-introducing international travel and avoiding snap lockdowns - then it is imperative that every individual, who is eligible, get vaccinated. The message is simple.

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Emelia Haskey WORDS

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Sex and the (Small) City

The best dating strategy is giving up

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With my busy schedule involving juggling study, work, and my plans to nationalise the production of Moscato, I’ve been taking some time away from the dating scene. The sheer bliss of not constantly checking your Tinder messages and trying to come up with clever yet charming opening lines to break the ice with someone new who may or may not be batshit insane has been extremely pleasant. Alas, all good things must come to an end. In my case, I asked a mutual friend out for drinks, and he agreed it would be fun.

Success, I thought, I have secured the date.

When I checked in the next day to see how he was doing, he told me all about the wonderful date he’d been on with someone else, in an unfortunate case of being completely socially inept. When faced with the battle of trying to secure a date while also not ending up in competition with another woman, I chose the only rational option: I gave up.

The problem with growing up identifying as a woman is that you will inevitably be socialised into jumping off buildings for very mediocre men. Rather than letting someone actively pursue you, you end up doing all the work arranging dates and getting to know them and pretending the band they play in is good, before they’ve even told you whether they’re actually interested in you. So, in an effort to stop tripping over myself, I’ve decided to go on strike. Unless someone is actively pursuing me, I’m not making an effort. No asking anyone out, no playing he-loves-mehe-loves-me-not, no forcing small talk. I will be sitting on the couch watching telly until further notice.

This may seem like a fairly extreme approach to what seems like a minor issue, but I cannot stress enough that your time is far more valuable than you think it is, and what you spend it on will come back and haunt you. In Carrie Bradshaw fashion, I couldn’t help but wonder…when it comes to dating burnout, is giving up the best strategy?

Embracing the single lifestyle is not that dramatic a decision since we moved past the 1830s and stopped constantly trying to marry a man who earns 10,000 pounds a year and a cushy mansion in Cornwall. We

live in a modern era, we’re all ground down by capitalism, no-one’s going to tell you off if you feel like you need a break from life. That being said, the addictive nature of apps like Tinder is real, and it’s perfectly normal (and healthy) to crave some romantic affection after binge-watching Notting Hill for the fifth time. The media does tend to make coupling-up look like the be all and end all of most people’s existence. This isn’t to say that you’re giving up on dating entirely, by taking some time off can seriously help in avoiding digging yourself into a hole.

In taking the focus off jumping back into the dating scene, it can be advised to try and focus on your interests, pursue your passions, join some Uni clubs, etc. For example, I’m using this column to pursue my dream of becoming a niche internet micro-celebrity with thousands of comments saying “based” under my Instagram posts. We all have our fantasies…

What is not helpful with the whole strategy of “giving up” is the idea that this is a final state of being. Choosing not to engage in the dating chase does not mean you become a hermit and start cursing all happy couples and/or men. I dabble in misandry for the fun of it but I don’t believe in writing off a whole gender, mostly because people’s genitals hold no great meaning for me. In times of doubt – get a hobby. Even if you’re bad at it, you can always crack out a terrible rendition of Wonderwall on the guitar and you’ll be the life/joke of the party. No one’s attracted to despair – and that goes for everyone (except maybe Tim Burton).

My final piece of advice? Apart from writing your own dating column where you get to complain about modern dating (which really is very cathartic), appreciate the other forms of love in your life. Carrie Bradshaw would be nothing without Samantha, Miranda, and Charlotte there to stop her doing stupid shit like spending forty-thousand dollars on shoes. Even your parents may have likeable qualities – good for them! So turn on the TV, put your feet up, and sigh contentedly.

You’ve earned it.

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Alumni Network Wine Tasting words Stasi Kapetanos

On the last day of September, I stepped out of my shell and went to the Young Alumni Network’s Winter Warmer Wine tasting night. As a bit of a vino enjoyer myself, receiving a cool glass Blanc de Blanc 2015 sparkling wine with its dry but sweet flavour was a nice start to the night. Despite not being an alumnus myself, as an On Dit editor in my last semester of University, familiar company was not hard to find.

Upon being seated I was delighted to see a tiny pack of mints which aesthetically reminded me of 1950s Marlboro cigarettes and felt as hard as diamond between my teeth and actually went quite well with all of the wines. I must admit I was a bit out of my depth and ate the first round of food that was paired with the wine before it was even poured into my glass, right after a short committee address. As an Adelaide Uni clubs addict, having sat on 5 different committees over my years, the thought of joining that of the Alumni Network does tempt my compulsive side.

Back to the wines. We started with the Petaluma ‘White Label’ Sauvignion Blanc, again a dry and sweet elixir, followed by the citrusy Jacques Audras 2016 Chardonnay, then an earthy but fruity Scanlon Pinot Noir, and ended with a deep smooth Ludo ‘Silk’ 2018 Shiraz.

Each drink also came with a unique platter of delicious food, more so than most Uni events. Tasting this wine with some good friends and some great food made for a good night and one which I am sure any Adelaide Uni alumnus would enjoy just as much as I did.

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Review 19 photography issue8hearsay#1.indd 19

Ellie Cheesman 28/10/21 1:39 pm

Taylor’s Complaint words Taylor Fernandez Philip Roth’s Portnoy’s Complaint—aptly published in ’69—just oozes with horniness. Roth’s commitment to creating highly provocative art is almost admirable, from the explicit scenes detailing Portnoy’s sexual fantasies to the excessive use of the word cunt. Yet for a book so intently committed to discussing the finer points of masturbation, my experience was far less onanistic; in the sense that I gave myself barely any pleasure from reading it.

THE MOST HORNIEST CHARACTER I’VE MET Portnoy’s Complaint takes the form of Alexander Portnoy’s monologue to his psychoanalyst, which becomes a discussion of family, guilt, Jewishness, and of course, sex. Portnoy’s dialogue is comical, ridiculous, and sometimes concerning. But fundamentally, each of Portnoy’s meditations reveal his extreme satyriasis. In fact, Portnoy is so obsessively driven by his libidinal desires that he surpasses even the Tyrone Slothrops of the fictional realm with his unrelenting arousal.

Is there humour in his perversion? Certainly. But my issue with Portnoy’s Complaint is that what is meant to be groundbreakingly daring often comes across as blatantly misogynistic. Women and objects are literally interchangeable to the young Portnoy; every orifice exists simply as a vaginal substitute. This extends to bottles, apples, and most infamously, a pig liver. While inanimate objects beg Portnoy to come, women are faced with a worse treatment. Consider the following passage: “This one has a nice ass, but she talks too much. On the other hand, this one here doesn’t talk at all, at least not so that she makes any sense—but, boy, can she suck!”.

There is no point continuing… it only gets worse. One sexual partner is referred to by Portnoy as “The Monkey”. His disgusting behaviour toward her is unsurprising, seeing as his only positive interactions with women are with his mother, and uh, his dinner.

Roth, however, is pardoned with the same excuse that our beloved post-war authors are often allowed. “Oh yes, the way that the male character only cares about her body is representative of the idealisation of the American dream”, and “the protagonist did fuck multiple women in one night, only referring to them by their body parts, but it shows how fragmented we have become in the wake of postmodernity!” and so forth, ad nauseum. Yet this notion that a horribly objectifying portrayal of women can be justified by literary intent feels akin to the guy who thinks he is allowed to repeatedly tell you how much he wants to sleep with you because he apparently loves you. So, how can we seek to understand Portnoy’s neurosis, and his creepy attitude to sex? Perhaps our favourite psychologist Daddy has the answers?

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FREUD CRAZY The content of the novel can honestly be summed up by this Portnoy-esque comment: “Some-times Freud in hand, sometimes in Alex, frequently both.” Both masturbation and psycho-analysis are given ample real estate. Psychoanalysis, however, is ultimately treated as a joke. Literally, one big joke! Portnoy’s Complaint (spoiler alert) is concluded with a punch line: Port-noy’s psychoanalyst, Dr Spielvogel, silent throughout Portnoy’s 200-page spiel, says, “Now vee may perhaps to begin”. My major issue with the Oedipal Complex in the book is that it is not even remotely subtle. The unconscious becomes the conscious—but the conscious is frank-ly quite gross. When Portnoy says one thing, he almost certainly means his mother.

He asks, “If here in the living room their grown-up little boy were to tumble all at once onto the rug with his mommy, what would Daddy do? Pour a bucket of boiling water on the raging, maddened couple?”.

But perhaps this critique of psychoanalysis can help to reconcile my disgust at some of the novel’s elements: maybe it is intended to be read as a farce. Roth may instead be suggesting that if our true unconscious desires came to the surface, they too would manifest as something shockingly disgusting and grim. If—heaven forbid—Freud was right, we too, are all Portnoys. Or maybe this is wishful thinking; Roth could simply be a horny man.

THE MOST PREVALENT FORM OF SEXUAL OBSCENITY IN LITERATURE But let my complaint draw to a close with a—hopefully not perfunctory—glance at the merits of the novel, because, indeed, there are some. Portnoy’s Complaint is not always about sex: it is a comment on the repression felt in Jewish boyhood; a dialogue on the frustrations of familial pressures; and an interesting character study. The book also plays with itself (ha ha), relishing in an experimental narrative style and a darkly humorous tone. Roth’s prose is quite funny at times, at least when he is not being… wanky. The provocation reflects the shift from the sexual revolution in the 60s where a more liberated discourse on sex is possible.

Roth is able to push the boundaries, which good art should surely do. This may be why Portnoy’s Complaint is cherished as a literary milestone: Roth has successfully navigated new literary territory. But to enjoy those aspects of the novel, you must first come to terms with its objectifying attitude toward women it depicts. Then, you may perhaps to begin.

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Ellie Cheesman

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The Adelaide Fashion Collective have started a student-run fashion magazine. Fresher Magazine aims to showcase a liberation from conformity in fashion. Instead, our focus is on individuality: by embracing our personal styles and influences, fashion can become fresher.

Fresher presents emergent voices, visions, and stories in the Australian fashion landscape. We aim to bring a youthful approach to fashion that is playful and vibrant.

You can read our first issue, ‘Renaissance’, at freshermag.com or find @freshermag on Facebook and Instagram.

photography CREATIVE DIRECTOR STYLISTS MODELS

Marie Knudsen Isabella Sykes Lini Leng and Thao Tran Ava Viscariello and Louisa Zuze

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Book RECS The South by Jorge Luis Borges “Reality is partial to symmetries and slight anachronisms.”

A man reading the Arabian Nights slices open his head on the edge of a window pane. The contents of the book then seemingly infect the wound, nudging reality onto a turbulent course for the rest of the story. Expect to experience the desolation of a sanatorium, the winsomeness of the Argetinian countryside, and the exhilaration of a knife fight. I highly recommend this short story if you are a fan of fiction on the fuzzy end of reality.

words BECK ROWSE

A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood Genre: LGBT+, Drama Isherwood's writing style in A Single Man is captivating and beautifully written. His novel gives insight into the experiences of being a gay man in 1960s America and making sense of life after the sudden death of a loved one.

It also presents a deeply flawed character, highlighting the views and attitudes of the time the novel takes place. This left me uncomfortable at times but allowed me to reflect on society today and recognise the progress that has been made and what still needs to change. I recommend reading this classic for its captivating description and engaging plot.

words Lakeisha Watkins

We Were Liars by E Lockhart This is is a book that I’ve picked up a few times over the past few years and each time the story has meant something different to me. A book about friendship, family, wealth, love, class, race, grief and illness, this story really has it all. Written from the first-person point of view of main character Cadence and set over a period of her adolescence, one cannot help but form a love/hate relationship with everyone around her. This book will tug at your heartstrings while encouraging you to sharpen your pitchforks. These types of books are page turners, but I recommend savouring this one and really taking your time with it.

words Habibah Jaghoori 24

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photography

Ellie Cheesman 28/10/21 1:39 pm

Circe by Madeline Miller Genre: Myth/Fantasy I have always been a lover of all things mythological, ever since I first heard the iconic blast of the Age of Mythology audio as my PC slowly loaded the home-page. But when it comes to books, I had noticed a significant gap in fiction based on Greek myths that give a voice to its iconic female characters - David Gemell and Rick Riordan just weren’t quite cutting it or me! (Although both authors are still excellent reads in their own right). Madeline Miller has created a masterpiece in Circe.

More than her complex characters and imaginative story, she brings a certain level of realness to her writing; her voice is so strongly unique and so addictive; poetic but also simple. Taking a somewhat less-known character, Miller’s writing gives justice to, not just Circe, who has popularly been cast as villain, but other female characters, who in historical tellings were never given a voice or platform. This book cannot be so easily pigeon-holed into one genre, as it encompasses so much; it is myth, it is history, it is fantasy, it is romance, it is feminist, it is mystery and it is thriller, and it unpacks so many truths in such a digestible way. If you are a fan of life you should read this book; it is a great introduction into the rising category of retellings of iconic female myths!

words Michelle Roylance

By The Sea by Abdulrazak Gurnah I’d never heard of this year’s Nobel Prize in Literature winner - which is not unusual - but the selection of an African author piqued my interest as they’ve been relatively few. By The Sea is a masterful work by an author who can’t write a dishonest sentence. The tone is conversational, like listening to a wizened old friend tell you the story of their life, littering pearls of wisdom along the road. Two Zanzibari immigrants to the UK unexpectedly meet each other again after many years past; I would avoid a more detailed synopsis and trust Gurnah, who has written an essential and timeless chronicle of the migrant’s journey.

words Ivan Jankovic

Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language by Gabrielle Montell Y’all ever wonder why English is indiscriminately unaccommodating towards gender-neutrality?

Why do slurs almost always have to be feminine? What about the word like? Why do women use it so often and is it even, like, a real word?

An unabashed self-described wordslut, Montell methodically scrutinises the problem of gender within the English language. In this book, she exposes the underlying misogyny within the semantics and etymologies of words, reveals the way women support one another through body language, advocates for a queer lexicon, and teaches us how to snap back at catcallers like a linguist.

In a society where the patriarchy is omnipresent even in the way we speak, Montell gives us an ever-empowering experience that demands the subversion of the English language and the linguistic expansion that can accommodate our diverse and nuanced identities. Whether you have done a linguistics course at uni or not, you will be astonished by the embedded gender struggles in our lexicon and the advances women have made to resolve them.

Wordslut is entertaining, educational, and practical– a required read for all feminists trying to reclaim the language that vocalises our resistance.

words

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Ngoc Lan Tran

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I’m a photographer & filmmaker, seeking to capture the beautiful natural selves of people and the world. Mostly I like to capture things that show us something about being human; things that are pretty, bring us joy or that we can connect to.

ellie cheesman

artist Feature

Is photography an intimidating field to break into?

Yes! I feel like because people tend to only hire artists that they know, and I move around a lot, trying to find work can be… so hard. The industry can be whatever you make it though, I like that about it.

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What is your process or aim when doing your photography?

Ah, big question! I see beautiful images everywhere, but when I’m in one of those ‘bring my camera everywhere’ phases, I actually capture them.

I think of how tourists take photos of everything when they’re exploring a new place, even seemingly mundane things like a building or a meal. I like to think I take that ‘tourist’ perspective - a general sense of awe and curiosity at the world - with me everywhere.

What makes a fantastic photo in your book?

It’s so subjective. I just think if it looks pretty and makes you feel something, it’s so special. I’d say it might come down to lighting, framing and subject matter? But if it draws attention to some beauty in life in some way, it’s a winner for me.

How much do you need to know about the tech itself? Different cameras and lenses, etc.

I don’t think you need to know much about the equipment when taking a photo, unless there’s an exact image that you have in mind; but it helps! I usually like to let the camera and the environment or situation surprise me, especially if I’m shooting on film because the whole process has so many variables. It helps to know some basics about aperture and shutter speed but it’s easier capturing things in the moment when you leave the settings on automatic. I think that’s more beautiful anyway - real life. I know a lot of photographers would look down on me saying that but if you’re happy, who cares!

What's your favourite subject matter to shoot?

My favourite people being happy & doing what they love, or just people in general. But even nature or food or nice lighting on architecture and my surroundings. I like to photograph everything!

What is the most important element of the image?

I think intention is the most important element to most things in life. And transcendence.

What is your favourite aspect of being a photographer?

Showing people the beauty in themselves that I see all the time. If I use a particular lens, angle, location or gel colour on the lighting, I can show people a side to themselves, others and/or the world that they didn’t see before. I feel that it all comes down to perspective. The art of photography allows us to share with each other how we see the world.

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photography

Ellie Cheesman

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photography

Ellie Cheesman

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daylight moon you know those times where you can see the moon

grace atta

in broad daylight

always surprised at its appearance

but more appreciative than if it were night

that’s how it was when I realised

I loved you

words

even after the romance

had done its orbit around us

I could still see stars in your eyes and a soul with the depth of the galaxy’s unknown it was still you where I wanted to land

you were the moon and I a mere astronaut 32

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love in a blink I have slowly teared you away from every conscious thought but if I blink

there we are

milliseconds in micro-space

my vision starts

with our hands interlocked

panning to us walking

through gardens, parking lots

down aisles, in supermarket shops

there in the black room of my attentional lapse

we are always together

seemingly the only source of light 33

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girl Batman

Chapter 1: eight

At age 8 I loved soccer, and Batman posters decorated my walls, much to my mother’s dismay.

‘Sarah,’ she shook her head, at my collection of knee-length shorts and superhero T-shirts.

‘Why don’t you wear dresses?’

‘These clothes make you look like a boy.’

Her worries were echoed when the school year started, and my teacher whispered to her, ‘Is that a girl or a boy?’

While I sat patiently, in my bowl cut and worn Batman sandals.

These words didn’t mean much to me at the time.

My thoughts were filled with adventure and imagination, of dragons and race cars and of playtime with my friends who didn’t seem to mind my dress sense much either.

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photography Words

Ellie Cheesman amber lennox

‘'We've got the girl!'’

Tomboy

When the lunch bell dinged my classmates and I would frantically race to the box of sports equipment pushing and shoving to find the most pumped up rubber ball we could get.

‘Don’t sit with your legs open like that!’

‘Stop talking so loudly!’

‘Don’t be so bossy to your brother!’

‘Stop taking so much food from the table!’

Once retrieved, we would run to the oval, made of mean artificial grass that was notorious for sending kids to the nurse with skinned knees and elbows.

Echoed. by parents and teachers alike, while they took blue from our curious hands and minds and replaced it with pink; while they laughed at boys being boisterous and confident, and scolded us for doing the same.

‘Two bounces!’ we would call out, after the team captains split the boys, and me, into teams picking from best to worst.

One afternoon, when my friends and I had agreed to play with a group of big kids, we debated who would get the kick off, when my team captain argued, ‘We should get it!

We’ve got the girl!’

In a tone that caused my throat to tighten, and a small sense of shame to run through me, though I didn’t know why, as I continued the game, pretending I hadn’t heard. issue8hearsay#1.indd 35

‘It’s not ladylike!’

‘Tomboy’ was the label that was stuck on me; the label I reluctantly accepted.

Classmates repeatedl, ‘You have short hair, you like boy clothes, boy games, boy superheros, you must be a tomboy!’

So, after a while, I accepted it.

‘Why else,’ they thought, ‘Would she do all these boy things unless she wanted to be a boy?’

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photography

The Diamond of the Season Change

Chapter 2: sixteen

At age 16, I liked Top 100 music, and the Batman posters that had once littered my walls, Words By lady adelaide were hidden in the bottom drawer, replaced by polaroids taken with friends, all of us smiling, flipping back our long hair, fake laughing, to make a good Instagram photo.

Childhood fantasies were replaced by stress over schoolwork, my future, family, friends, and what others thought of me.

My wardrobe was filled with uncomfortable crop tops and denim skirts, that were so tight that I couldn’t breathe.

But I persisted, because I would stand out if I didn't.

Ellie Cheesman

Empowering?

My school prided itself on being ‘inclusive, diverse and empowering,’ though often, it seemed like it was the complete opposite.

Inclusive; yet some students sat lonely at lunch, while the cliques sat content.

Diverse; Yet it was a stereotypical upper-class private school.

Empowering; Yet, for all the school’s talk of empowerment; arranging sexual health talks on slut shaming and pornography; insisting that the school was a ‘safe space,’ teachers had no problem with handing out detentions for a short skirt.

What does that imply?

When girls are told that their skirts are too short?

That they are promiscuous; or distracting, or ‘easy’?

And what's worse than being an outsider?

Maybe students aren’t the only ones who would benefit from a talk on slut shaming.

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University

Walking down a busy shopping street; with the latest pop music blaring in my ears, it is hard to ignore the thousands of billboards advertising clothes for young girls worn by models with perfect blonde hair; perfect blue eyes; perfect clear skin; and perfect hourglass figures.

At age 21, I pored over the classics, ‘The Bell Jar,’ and Maya Angelou; and a small Batman figurine sat on the dresser of my small apartment, next to a stack of textbooks, that threatened to topple over if I coughed too loudly.

It is hard to ignore when brands believe ‘diversity’ is featuring one light-skinned black model in a sea of white faces.

It is hard to ignore the thousands of pop songs boasting about money, sex, alcohol, and drugs.

It is hard to ignore the millions of messages being thrown in our face every day, about how we should act, look, talk, and think.

Chapter 3: twenty one

Representation

I would sit forward in the front row of the lecture theatre, listening to the squeak of markers on whiteboards, while a professor wove stories about politics and sociology; that inspired me to dream of a better world; where gender wouldn’t restrict but would open up opportunities to flourish and grow.

Though I still felt the sting of the uncertainty of my youth; in every dry throat and hesitant hand that I raised in class; in every ‘Sorry,’ I started each sentence with.

Each day I found myself becoming bolder and braver; excited for a future where strong, proud and independent women were the rule, rather than the exception.

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The cool night air kissed her skin as she sprinted through the hall, its open windows letting in a strong wind. Her steps were hard against the cold marble floor, the sound in tune with her breaths. Her lungs burned—begged her to stop running. Yet, despite their pleas, she persevered, fear fuelling her movements. He was following. The prince.

She had to push on, or she would forever be trapped. At night the barrier that trapped her to the castle and its courtyard weakened, a lucky discovery. No—a miracle. She only had one day left to leave before the contract locked her into this life. When Lysithea realised the barrier was down she’d simply grabbed a dagger she’d stolen a few days earlier and made a run for it.

A drop of blood was all that was needed. She just had to add it to the fountain in the courtyard and the seal would be broken. That bastard of a prince would be unable to keep her here. If luck would see her survive, she’d turn to the seas and find her father—the one responsible for all of this.

She reached the large wooden double doors and heaved them open. A creak filled the air. She continued running through the courtyard, the wind blowing her short blonde hair into her face.

In seconds she would reach the fountain. She prayed she could keep ahead of the prince.

The gravel crunched under her feet. She knew she only had seconds left before her legs gave out. A shout sounded from behind. She didn’t dare to look back. The fountain came into view motivating her to push on. Lysithea pulled out the dagger from her nightgown’s pocket and slid it along the skin below her thumb. Within seconds she reached the fountain and leapt into it, keeping the dagger in her hand. Pain exploded through her body as she hit the bottom of the fountain, making her grunt. The ceramic grazed her legs and palms.

The contract that trapped her here had been made twenty-three years ago when she was just a week old. Her father had signed her away to the Sun Kingdom in exchange for power. He had gotten it, enough to become a feared pirate in the oceans of the neighbouring Moon Kingdom.

Lysithea, as per the contract, was to become a personal guard to the crown prince at age twenty-three. Her powers as a sorceress were of great value, particularly to a kingdom that bore none of her kind. Yet Lysithea had no desire to work such a job.

By the way of the contract, she was allowed a right to challenge it. The fae who oversaw the deal had directed her on the conditions when he’d brought her here two weeks ago. It had taken her a week to solve the riddle on what she had to do to break it. After—no—if she broke the contract, the fae who oversaw things would reappear and return her to her home. Harm could not come to her once the contract was void. Or so the magical being had said.

Yet now, as her blood seeped in with the water and the prince walked to the edge of the foun-

A Contract of Blood and Dagger photography

Ellie Cheesman

Words Lakeisha Watkins 38

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tain, a stern look upon his face, it seemed that the fae would not reappear. Instead, the dagger warmed in her hand, then burned. She dropped it with a yelp and watched as it exploded with a flash that forced her to shut her eyes. When she opened them, a man stood next to her—tall with caramel brown hair.

He studied Lysithea, a smile forming on his face. “It appears as though you’ve signed a contract with me.” He turned to face the prince and with one swift movement of the hand he sent him flying through the courtyard.

“Who are you?” Lysithea demanded as she frantically shuffled away from him. She looked around desperate to find a quick escape route.

“Cassius Vasselon,” the man replied. He reached his hand out to her. “And may I have the name of the one who has freed me?”

Lysithea stared at him, then his hand. She steadied her breathing. “You may call me Lysithea,” she replied as she slowly reached out her own.

“Well, Lysithea, let me give you this as my thanks,” Cassius replied. He bent down and brought her hand to his lips, then kissed it. With no effort at all, he pulled her to her feet. “Your powers should be back.”

She narrowed her eyes at Cassius then looked at her grazed palm and the cut. She placed her other hand over it, hoping to put the strangers’ words to the test. Her magic flowed through her hand and healed her injuries in seconds.

“Good.” Cassius nodded. “Now, let’s get out o here,” he said eagerly. He waved his hand in front of him, making a door appear.

Lysithea’s eyes widened. Her thoughts turned from her suspicions of the man to what type of magic user he was. “And what is it that this contract involves?”

“I simply want you to help me find something that was stolen from me,” Cassius replied. “Now come along before the prince gets to you.” He stepped through the door and disappeared.

Lysithea stepped up to the blue wooden door, resting her clammy hand against its frame. She took one last glance behind her at the kingdom’s castle. Though she barely knew this person she’d rather take her chances with him than the unforgiving Sun Kingdom. She stepped through, hoping this new contract was kinder. It seemed that breaking contracts wasn’t her strong point.

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The sky still grey and the soil still soaked from the rains of yesterday, dawn broke. Nathan was weary eyed as he walked along the rain swept road, verdure along the side the essence of petrichor filled his senses. Water vapor condensed on his glasses clouding his vision, he took them off. The breeze had a serene coolness to it, yet weaved a sense of melancholy. Nathan checked his watch, 10:30. He reached the café and ordered a latte, his usual, as he waited.

He had met Aislyn about a year ago here. She was reading Yeats, his favorite, and he knew he had to talk to her, “The silver apples of the moon, the golden apples of the sun.” He had recited as he approached her. Aislyn had looked up from her book, her eyes a shade of blue, the blue found in nature, if nature was perfect, the kind of eyes that inspire music…

They talked for hours, conversations melting into melodies, it was the things she said or maybe the way she said things, the way her mind worked that made Nathan feel certain that she was the certainty that shattered the shackles of those on a rebellion against love.

They parted, agreeing to meet again the next day, 10:30am.

Samaira was an enigma. The curls of her hair, as unruly, as she was. A Guns’n’Roses t-shirt, her denims ripped at the knees. Jesse saw her a week into college. She had the saddest eyes he had ever seen, which also made them the most beautiful. Their meal times intersected often. He was awkward enough to avoid eye contact, she was friendly enough to approach first.

There is more to everybody than they portray, below the surface, above the crowd…

Samaira was the ficklest conversationalist Jesse had encountered, she could talk about the infinite universe one moment and assorted color pencils for eyes and glossy wax for lips the next.

Samaira was silent often, she had bad days more often than not.

“Is living worth the pain?” she asked him.

“Does the mud make you hate the rain?” he replied.

It was the day of the session with her psychiatrist. “Can you still see him?” the doctor asked. Samaira threw Jesse a sidelong glance…

“Is he here right now?” “No”, she replied…

Samaira refused to take her pills. “I’ll lose you”, she said.

“I’m you.” he replied.

Samaira smiled, her smile, unforced, completely unlike his…

It was one of the coldest days when they decided to go out for coffee. Samaira insisted on driving, but Jesse won the coin toss. They put the heater on, which made the inside of the windshield clouded, clouded enough for Jesse to not see the girl crossing the street…

Samaira jumped out of the car, “Call an ambulance!” she screamed.

Jesse stood there, blank, unmoving…

Samaira grabbed her cell from the car and called 000. She crouched by the girl again, she picked up a copy of Yeats that was lying next to the girl and started reading it to her. Her head resting on Samaira’s lap…

“She’s dead.” Jesse said.

Samaira continued reading…

Presently, it had started to rain, Nathan finished his latte and got up to leave…

He left behind a note written on the café’s napkin which read, “Black pupils in field of azure, A hint of distrust, a pool of sorrows…

Those eyes inviting me close and turning away.

Satin silences and future regrets, Because in this crowd of wandering eyes, Mine search for yours every time…”

For this is what we have to do, urge our hearts to accept the truth, wait for fate to find us once more, live on…

Damaged but not destroyed, we live on…

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barre

n i ra

n

photography Ellie Cheesman Words Jasjyot Khanduja issue8hearsay#1.indd 41

s

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Dawn Intentions

The room was dim as the only candles the owners could afford were small and poorly crafted. The flickering of the central hearth was enough to illuminate the dancing figures in eerie shadows. Drunken haze distorted them into stretched beasts of another world. But the merry folk were long gone now leaving only the remnants of their dark creatures slinking in the corners where the light didn’t reach. The floor was only met with the few empty thuds of a lone dancer and the barmaids that served the sole patrons that remained there. The early hours were beginning their trek to shine sense and reality into any barfly that lingered there, in the crooked tavern. The fire puffed occasional clouds of smoke that refused to follow its siblings up the chimney into the surrounding town. This and the smell of candle wax burning created a homely smell that lingered under the stench of spilled drinks and tobacco, not to mention the variety of fluids that had been laid loose by uncontrollable drunks.

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Annabel Fedcesin Words

photography

Ellie Cheesman

The tavern stood precariously, squashed between two stone buildings of much more grace and beauty. It was an assault on all the senses. In harsh daylight one would think it a condemned shack, reeking of decay and begging for demolition. But at night, despite the lack of proper lighting, it grew into a thriving hub of merry souls and sinister intentions. Magic hour, however, brought out these little immoralities in even the most prudent and well-intentioned saints.

Something about the growing dawn called for sins to crawl there way out from the shadows and into the quivering glow that encapsulated the room. Many a good man had been twisted from his path over a plate of the chef’s unspeakably grotesque stew, many a young lass had been strayed from her better judgement with a glass of hard ale.

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This night was no exception to the trends of wrongdoings.

The solitary, inebriated man dancing off centre in the tavern, jived to the wrong tune. Tables dotted around the room occupied the occasional dreary, downtrodden, or drowsy patron. One such was Lillian, who sat with her head resting gently against the table, cheek pressing into an unknown residue. She watched the man stumble with his off rhythm and tapped absentmindedly at the mug that housed her tasteless beer. The barmaids she’d seen each night over the past few years wiped down benches and stools in a distorted clatter of wood.

The only one she knew the name o, Gertrude, knew the drill. Every moment that Lillian’s mug was empty, a new one needed to replace it. The other girls stayed away, tending their own regulars who kept to themselves as well. Someone behind the hearth, out of sight, whined about their unloving partner. Another behind her hummed to a different tune to the other two that seemed to be playing, by the bard and the dancing man.

The tavern door swung open, but not to let someone out as would be expected at such an ungodly time as this. Instead, in strolled two men of meager appearance. Lillian began to drift off, thinking nothing of the entrance. She dreamed of a field, one where she was alone in the cool wind and bright moonlight. Comforted only by the sensation of pure bliss and icy grass, she knew she could live there for eternity, cold as death but warmed by the thought of loneliness. Her eyes fluttered open once more as voices came down to her in low, hushed tones.

“-her gone.” One of the meager men stood next to Lillian’s table talking to the other who stood by her chair. The one that spoke

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wore clothes that reminded her of her husband, a man she barely knew or saw. She had taken to drinking three years ago and now spent her days in a blur of ales, alone in her corner. “I refuse to live under such lovelessness.”

“We cannot do this here or now.” The other whispered. He reminded her of her brother, the person who, in her youth, she’d felt closest to in all the world, but as her maturation revealed that her world was much smaller and constricting than her young imagination had believed, he too was pushed aside to make room for the warm embrace of something fermented.

“Look at her,” the husband-ish one sighed, Lillian’s eyes growing heavy again and stinging in the smoke of the room, “she’s half dead already.”

“Did the priest say that is a sign?” The brother-ish one’s voice echoed down behind her. “She’s not herself.”

“Indeed. He claims that women who drink like our Lily have demons in their head and heart.” Her husband’s voice was stern and certain.

She felt herself try to sit up and protest, but her muscles decided for her.

She would not. There was silence for a while save for the lone voice of the bard and his sad song.

In ne’er a time I will wait For the sweet re-lease Of my fate And I will go Down to the glade Where amber stars My heaven made If I ne’er wake To see your face Know my body Was yours to brace Lillian felt hands wrap round her arms and tug her close. As she blinked metres apart and into the street, early morning fog protected the curious eye from the scene unfolding. She listened to the song fade behind her.

My blood drained from My weak skin And mem-ories Begin to thin I’ll think once more Of our loves-end Did I not show The heart to mend?

I go now To the place I dream In meadow dew And soft moonbeam

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photography

Ellie Cheesman

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On Call

The hospital juts out of the ground like a rock, splitting the stark desert landscape in two.

Sun-kissed and sand-battered, nature ravages it like a storm. A wall of dark red, burning dirt surrounds it on all sides. It’s being consumed; encircled. Eaten, slowly, by the earth. But it resists.

It is defiant. Intimidating. It’s monolithic.

Words by Raphail Spartalis

Inside the hospital it is damp and cold. Its walls are washed in off-white. The nurse glides down the hall, pausing at regular intervals to peek into the various rooms dotted along the corridor. It stops outside one, hesitates, then enters. This is what the nurse sees: The room is old and filled with death. A skeleton lies on the bed. Its milky bones have long since faded to a dusty grey. Undisturbed for years, a thick layer of grime covers its lifeless frame like icing sugar on a cake. (The nurse does not think this part about the icing sugar and the cake.) There is stillness in the air. Against the far wall, a window used to let light into this room. Once, it would have framed the outside like a picture: roses, tulips, lush green fields.

Now it is dark crimson, almost black. A canvas of nothing. Layer by layer, the earth has built up around this building, this window; packed itself tight. Pressure cracks divide the glass into uneven thirds.

The nurse leaves this room and continues on down the corridor, past room 314, 315, 316...

It arrives at the lobby, pauses, surveys the area. Then it calls out to the room in the same way it has every day for the past ninety-eight years. It asks if it can be of service to anyone. Then announces that the canteen is offering a two-for-one deal on muffins for the next hour. It pauses momentarily before requesting that Janine come with it, that the doctor will see her now.

Janine, reduced now to a pile of bones scattered clumsily across the tiled waiting room floor, does not reply. Perhaps she’s busy. Or just a tad shy? Oh well, she will have her chance again tomorrow. The nurse, ever dependable, leaves to fill its next post.

Mrs Magnusson from room 721 still hasn’t given birth. This labour is taking longer than expected (and recommended). The nurse makes a note to check on her again tomorrow. It files this under Magnusson’s profile: 1 of 36,049 (flagged as urgent).

issue8hearsay#1.indd 45

As its shift draws to a close, the nurse reviews the day, ensures nothing was missed.

Affirmative. Yes. Hallelujah. Every room has been checked; every patient assessed. The job has been done. Flawless. Precise. Timely as always. If practice makes perfect, what does repetition make?

Content, the nurse returns to the basement. This is the warmest room in the hospital.

Seeking out the bright, familiar glow of the reactor, it plugs itself in, dutifully. Despite the web of hairline fractures splitting the glass core of the generator like a mosaic, it has refused to give out. For the last hundred years it’s kept things going here– kept the lights on, so to speak. So reliable is the reactor, so magnanimous, that it was even willing to share its radiance with the rest of the hospital, in the end.

The nurse powers down. Outside, sand still batters the walls of the hospital. As the sky begins to fade—cool amber into deep red into dull, dusty grey—the remnants of the Moon rise to take their place in the darkening heavens. They shimmer dimly in shades of white and silver. Save for them, the sky is empty. Even the stars, once glistening beacons of light and life, are no longer visible: hidden behind a void of hazy darkness.

Back inside the hospital, all is still. The rooms are dark; their occupants silent. And far down in the basement, the reactor glows a deep ocean green.

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What if it actually worked?

Words William J. Barker Bobby Starling was the richest man in New York. He’d climbed up a skyscraper from the one-room apartment somewhere in the Bronx where he’d been born to the penthouse he now shared with his girlfriend. The climb had consisted of his first job in a local diner as a dishwasher, his scholarship to Columbia, several business failures, and even more business successes.

Joel Drake hated him. “How come he’s rich and I’m not?” he said to his bookie. “How come he’s successful and I’m not?” he said to his landlady, who he laid as an alternative to rent. “How come he’s got it all?” he said to anyone who’d listen. No one would.

One day, while congratulating himself on swindling a passing old lady out of five bucks by pretending to be a homeless cripple, the plan came to him. It happened in a second, like a bolt of lightning splitting through a tree, but it changed everything.

It was a brilliant plan. He pulled every favour, con, and dirty trick he had within reach, until he had enough money for some fancy clothes, a suave apartment, and everything else he needed.

As he strolled into the gala at the Met, bursts of flash from the cameras of journalists lined up along both sides of the red carpet illuminated every crack in him. Yet no one saw him behind the flash suit and ticket printed on gold. They saw him as one of them. He smirked as he passed through the entrance, over the threshold into the world of the rich.

Drake found Starling. He resisted the temptation to crush the rich boy’s hand when Starling offered it to him to shake. Drake shook it like a gentleman, while looking over Starling’s shoulder at his girlfriend.

Drake watched Starling and his girlfriend all night. Every step they took, finger they raised, and eye they turned to admire anyone’s dress or suit, they did it within the boundaries of his eyes.

When Starling left for a few minutes to go to the toilet, Drake made his move.

“Hello again,” he said to the girlfriend. “Oh, hello,” she said, surprised and remembering who he was. By the time Starling returned, Drake had spun such sweet words around her that she wouldn’t let him go for the rest of the evening. Drake left the evening with a small card she had slipped into his jacket pocket. It had a telephone number on it.

For weeks Drake worked on Starling’s girlfriend. He poured her glasses of champagne and sweet nothings into her ear. They were flattering and charismatic words without an ounce of truth in them that made her giggle, stare at him with her clear and glassy eyes, and smile so that she showed him her vain pearly teeth.

All the time, through every lunch, dinner, breakfast, and night out at the clubs, Drake was smiling, because he was dreaming of the day when she would dump Starling for him. Him, the filthiest piece of trash in the New York gutter, a mangy and hitherto mildly successful con artist, steal a millionaire’s girlfriend!

Two months into his charade, Drake got a call. She said she wanted to marry him. She was ready to leave Starling and move in with him into the halls of his marble-coated apartment for the rest of her life. She described the wedding she wanted, with a guest list that went into the hundreds, at the tallest chapel in the city, complete with a wedding gown as pure white as the light from a star in the night sky.

Drake dropped the phone. What the hell was he going to do now? He couldn’t keep this up forever. His money had practically run out. Forget about paying to keep the act going for the rest of his life.

He couldn’t even pay to keep it going until the wedding that would cost more than he’d ever borrowed or swindled, or ever could.

He ran to the door but stopped before his fingers had reached the doorknob. He couldn’t go back to conning old ladies on the street. He’d find people coming down every street trying to collect their debt from him. Some would come with a baseball bat. Others would come with handguns.

Leave New York? Or the country? He didn’t have the money for a cab fare, let alone bus fare or air fare.

There was only one way out. As he slipped the noose around his neck and kicked the chair out from under him, he wished he’d thought of what would happen if his plan actually worked.

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photography

Ellie Cheesman

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Sfumato

His cheek blended into a clump of moss. Red down to yellow down to orange down to green. Blue veins framed his face around the eyebrows and under the mouth. They throbbed. Milking blood into a creek coloured by algae.

Winter rain had kept him alive so far. It caused water to rush down the creek, clapping clusters of rocks on the way. Frothing up to his mouth unlatched by a broken jaw. His throat then convulsing every so often and swallowing. Rock mineral, moss spores, and the taste of a hemorrhage.

His eyesight faded away over time. It came in the form of an ever increasing fog; giving the impression of great distance in the landscape. Arrowhead trees blurring forever. An endless row of pikes piercing out of creek dirt. The sun impaling it’s head onto every one of them. Bleeding it’s colour over the fog.

The man laughed as though he was being tickled. August wind feathered the soles of his feet and tornadoed up to his stomach. There it folded rain water into a sugary syrup. The process shot oxygen out of his nostrils.

Laughter and the sweetness of the syrup both helped to bandaid his pain. In particular, a triangle that was torn out of the centre of his torso, coming to a sharp point between his ribcage. It seemed to be infected by memories. Bamboo pillows, pima cotton, and the touch of muscle under skin all made it burn. Enough days at the creek, and it would scab over.

issue8hearsay#1.indd 49

beck rowse

Seasons blended into each other. Spring green down to Summer yellow down to Autumn orange down to Winter blue. The creek rose but rain visited less and less.

Now without running water to make sugar from, he starved. His stomach gurgled and tried to summon a hurricane from inside itself. But it was no use. The sun cooked the creek, burning brown the plant life that framed his body. And in the heat, the wound in his chest blistered and reopened. An air conditioned car, endless cacti in red dirt, and the knuckles of a lover’s hand on a gear stick. He stayed in these memories and forgot about the creek.

Words

Spring came soon enough, and with it a sense of growth. Out from underneath the soil caught in his fingernails, bean shoots sprouted. Ivy germinated from his gums and flossed the gaps between his teeth. Where his neck had snapped, a white Peace Lily grew, and beaconed like a lighthouse.

Memory soon hardened. Thoughts turned to pebbles. Senses ran with the water.

Skin leathered. He sank into the creek. Six feet under mud and algae. The Earth’s core replaced the sun. Under pressure and heat, the man fossilised, and everything blended to the colour of coal.

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photography Ellie Cheesman Words Oliver Vicker

g n c o y c l e s n a e oc

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e

The Sea I’

Tone

Beneath the heavy veils of winter rain I felt a swelling current stirring me A graphite sky above the weathervane At times like this I go down to the sea So glassy and engorged beyond the quay With blue and green and grey and greyer still And pulsing with a violent apathy I belong there.

At the bottom of the ocean.

I feel like I have always belonged there.

I cannot drink this all in forever because That stupid 10-watt sun comes up every morning.

I’m going to work but I’m not in love with you yet.

In the behaviour garden I experienced pure bliss It was timeless like dreams And warm like childish blood And I believed in the first level Of human perception And kissed myself on the other side Of my face on the flight home

The Taste of Water Before I dream, I drink water Leagues more bitter than it is clear.

My holy wooden artefact Does not mellify That in which heavy metal snows.

There is So much ocean-space between specks.

It tastes like an unfinished paper thing, Made ugly and deformed by mist.

60% of me calls out To the ancestral home.

Promise For the sake of balance I am allowed to explode I, Wasp nest that I am, Will bleed dry Yes! Moonblood! Why not?

How ignominious of you To leave behind the receptacle The bowl is made of real-life diamond!

Your eyes are more me than my shrapnel Or less me (I forget) My vocation is truth But please don’t seeing My honey: I made no promise of leadership Wolves tower over you atop a hill A tuft of clover, I flower near you

I let my body walk me through the rain To be close to myself.

Why should it taste sweet when that is not the shape of a person?

Damp human skin is Green tea.

The Sea II The sky is starched white with a wet blanket of cloud I can feel the sea from here, slicing through the make-believe world I live in With its blades of glass I want to walk on the shore between these two oceans and become one with them again Am I really the only one who feels the pulsing of the sea in the breath of someone who embraces me?

Does anyone else feel like they belong there When I’m calm in the dead of night i swear i can feel my back pressed gently, and firmly, Into the sea floor

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photography

Ellie Cheesman

The Sea III I’m in bed there are waves in my cot and they’re made by the scorpio moon my eyes are held shut by the weight of water of the water of the whole ocean my body is silently travelling downwards to the bottom and it gets darker and the water gets the same but i can’t just step onto shore i don’t want to i feel like i have always belonged here it’s so dark suddenly, my back is kissed by unknown sand my eyes and mouth snap open screams pour out of me i entered the heart of the ocean and there was nothing there and i remember that you once told me that you thought about me I begin to rise.

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Stitched You and I could wear our pyjamas in bed.

There will always be a cotton-field’s distance between our selves anyway.

What wide patchwork farmland is any different to Fingertips, with a veil of oil sheen?

I believe that Your breath resonates in my hollow and carries me away.

I see boundless winter fields stretching like wool around me. Matisse trees ripple past my vision as they stand in the snow. The canvas sky weaves into the white blanket, and somewhere behind it, the rose-pink yolk of the sun glows.

I feel no sharp, crystal cold, but instead feel that sun fill my belly.

You and I fold into these landscapes together.

Elastic band.

Tractor road.

The Sea IV I’m a limestone cliff.

I’m still alive.

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Anti-Plastique

Words ivan Jankovic

1.

The wild bellows of Kildare Windswept and festering The grass seeds carried into the ocean Sundial broken Even the wax is dripping Dripping All over my eyes And through my mouth The sweet taste of vindication Pouring out of a hole in my stomach.

The river cod eat the wax.

It fills them to the gills No one will eat the river cod.

Nothing shall be left In the river but bones And these bones cannot be the stuff of monuments No Parthenon dressed with myrtles No Arlington dressed with the graves of the irreplaceable dead No fire no witness No justice no peace But still still The tablet dripping Pellets raining down upon the roof As my eye throbs With the memory of the last light of day.

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2.

That night, a vision is dreamt the world over Of a faun galloping through the prim valleys of Arcadia Like a bitch in heat As windchimes sound from within her skull And over the grey horizon Looms a vast, towering trunk Veiny and leatherlike, an interminable spire With a body, and arms, and a head breathing in the black cumulus.

The faun, she tarries, and kicks up dirt But like Minerva before her And the Oracle at Delphi And the cod, and the mayflies moulting on the banks of the Lethe They do little else But remember all our half-finished monuments And what could have become of them.

3.

One soon learns that transcendence is a fool’s errand.

Eventually, one approaches its Long shadow, the shadow of a jetty No longer than the shoal it reigns over (I remember it now – tell me you do too) And they do not potter But charge after their arms Unwashed dreadlocks saturated by the afterlife of the breakers Skin teased by the salty gale Feet bleeding on the planks Which shall fall into the sea-swell eons after they leap Gliding on a tender wing Falling like arrowheads.

Where might they stand after the ocean has baptized them?

Upon the shore, or on the deck of the good ship Waving goodbye to home To sunny throes Tears resting on their chins Which the harrowed sea dare not sweep into its indifference?

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Postscript by the author:

This poetry prize ain’t it Earlier this year, the poem you read on the previous pages was awarded the University of Adelaide’s Bundey Prize for English Verse. In issue 89.4 of On Dit, Grace Atta, who volunteers for this magazine and is a brilliant poet, wrote an article in which she criticised a particularly unusual application rule: “Only applicants born in Australia will be considered” and “the prize winner will need to provide a copy of their birth certificate” before receipt of the prize money.

A strange rule as it is, it is not without possible justifications. Perhaps Miss Bundey wished to celebrate a new kind of Australian poetry and, through legal sleight-of-hand, tried to get around the fact Australian citizenship did not exist at the time. As this requirement was stipulated in her will, our University’s only recourse is to challenge it in the Supreme Court, something which it has no intention of doing.

But whatever Miss Bundey’s intentions were in 1912, Grace argued that they were not fit for purpose today. She called for students to boycott the prize and the establishment of a new one in its stead without regard to one’s place of origin.

Now, before some clown goes up in arms about the scourge of cancel culture, go find the issue, read the article, and you’ll see that it’s a nuanced take which I have not done nearly enough justice in paraphrasing.

But admittedly, I don’t in principle support taking any opportunities away from young writers in the early stage of their careers to have their work recognised; it is already a difficult enough task as is. Then again, my perspective is obviously tainted by the fact I’ve won this prize, and I’ve very happily taken the $200 prize money and ran. So, yes, approach my opinion with a grain of salt, and don’t hold the fact I need to pay the bills against me.

I do, however, believe that it is the role of universities to be cradles of culture, and that poetry will always be one of its most able vessels. We need to incentivise the creation of beautiful, true, and culturally significant Australian poetry by young people, which allows them to express their hopes and fears for this country, and to shape the meaning of what it means to live in it, without either blind admiration, nor hackneyed criticism; the sort of poets who use their chosen

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subject as a boxing bag hurt the art of poetry and reduce its estimation in the public’s hearts. Scream, shake your fist at it, but never hurt it. Best of all, try to rehabilitate it.

As it stands, it is disappointing that the University of Adelaide offers no such prize, not in the true sense anyway. Robert Menzies proclaimed Australia a multicultural country, and we have been that for the last seventy-odd years, for all its rewards and challenges. A poetry prize which, for example, the formerly imprisoned refugee poet Behrouz Boochani could not qualify for cannot truly be a touchstone for Australian culture. Nor my dear family friend, the SerboAustralian poet Jelena Dinic, despite writing some of the most evocative descriptions of the Adelaide Hills that I’ve read. What makes Australia a beautiful, good country will last as long as time itself; and what cripples it can’t only be illustrated by pie charts in a Reserve Bank report.

That’s why I join Grace in calling for the establishment of a new poetry prize at the University of Adelaide which is, a) open to all students regardless of birthplace, b) is awarded to poets who both celebrate and critically evaluate Australian culture, and c) offers a generous cash prize on par with Miss Bundey’s.

I hope someone well-regarded in the Department of English and Creative Writing heeds this call, and does not treat it like the screed of a tenacious, righteously just student. Leave that sort of thing for the verse. Or better yet, don’t.

Words ivan Jankovic

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Michelle Roylance Words

The Queen’s chambers were dark and almost damp, with only a few lit candles scattered about the room.

Aremis pulled his tattered sleeve over his nose to try and mask the smell of sick, as he followed Master Galen through the wooden doors and to the queen’s bed.

The Queen looked no better than she had every other day for the last month or so that they had visited. Pale, clammy skin, pained expressions, blue lips. The king’s five physicians surrounded her bed, constantly checking her pulse and supplying a damp cloth to her sweating brow, but aside from that, there was very little that they could do. Hence the need for Master Galen and his young apprentice.

Aremis’ ten-year old legs carried him confidently to the queen’s bedside table, where he placed Galen’s kit of potions and herbs. He could feel the physicians’ eyes on him, and had to bite the smug expression that was trying to fight its way onto his face.

Last night, in his little hut that adjoined to the rear of the palace, amidst a great mess of papers and books and food crumbs, Galen had made a breakthrough, and Aremis couldn’t wait to see the exasperated looks on the faces of the five old men, when, today, Galen healed the Queen and was awarded the respect Aremis already knew he deserved. All month the physicians had been trying to convince the King to ban them from the chambers:

‘This is no place for a Mystic Man and his experimental witchcraft’

‘Science will provide the answer, let me leech her some more’

‘There’s a reason the Gods left us with no magic, what he does is dark and dangerous.’

But King Edric was desperate and open to all suggestions, and was even willing to humour the whims of the ostracised hermit and his weird ways. Aremis knew that Galen was a little odd, not everyone had ants on toast for breakfast, or threw their shoes in the air five times before putting them on; but then, he figured, not everyone was a wizard.

Galen looked at Aremis impatiently. “Quickly boy, bring me the Milicent solution. Be sure it’s the right one.”

Aremis opened the kit, and ran a hand through his sandy mop of hair as he scanned the many vials for the one he had watched Galen brew just last night. The purple liquid swirled in the small bottle when he released it from its leather fastening and took it to his master.

“Good lad. Now gentlemen,” Galen addressed the physicians, “Stand aside, while I do what all you fat, old sots were incapable of doing.” It should be noted that Galen was both fatter and older than any of the King’s five physicians.

“What is in it mystic man?” The shortest physician, Fenter, spat.

Aremis clenched his fists and glared at him. He watched Galen halt and turn on the small physician. It was certainly not the first time one of the physicians had thrown around such insults, but Fenter was particularly callous in his treatment of Galen and his small apprentice.

“I shall explain as simply as I can, so that your narrow mind might have a chance at understanding.” Galen replied and Aremis smirked. “I had my young helper here go and pick herbs. He does this by kneeling–” Galen looked Fenter up and down, “something your knobbly old knees have probably not done in quite some time – and collecting parts of plants, you do know what a plant is, don’t you Festy? He returns them to me and then I treat them in all manner of ways. I can cut them, chop them, bend them,

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break them, slice them, steam them, sometimes I’ll even throw them in a stew. It is all about sampling and experimenting until one discovers what works. Perhaps you will allow me to concoct something for that wart on your nose, I assure you it could have wondrous results.”

Fenter’s hand flew to cover his large nose, as Galen turned his attention back to the Queen.

“And what of magic, master wizard?” A tired voice queried from the darkest corner of the room.

Aremis turned and squinted, and could just make out the faint outline of a man, seated by the closed, heavy velvet curtains.

“Only that which is necessary, Majesty.” Galen reassured. “Sometimes nature needs a little helping hand, a little enhancing, that is all.”

Aremis watched the King walk slowly towards them. As he stepped into the candlelight, he could see just how much of a toll the Queen’s declining health had taken on him; unclean, unshaven, with bloodshot eyes and a funny smell about him. He looked less like a King, and more like a regular at the tavern, Aremis thought.

“Proceed then.”

Galen nodded, and began treating the Queen.

Aremis stood next to him, his knees jolting nervously, more out of anticipation than worry. He watched as Galen checked her temperature, her pulse, and then measured out exactly hal o the vial in a smaller, spouted bottle, and then poured it between the Queen’s blue-tinted, cracked lips.

“The eects should be almost instantaneous.” Galen mumbled, pulling a small sand timer rom where he kept it always on his belt at his waist.

Aremis watched and waited with everyone else in the room, even the guards by the entrance had crept closer with curious eyes.

By the time the timer had distributed half of its sand, the Queen was still unmoving. Tendrils of doubt started swimming their way into Aremis’ thoughts. His mind flipped and floundered over what Galen had not told the King; about the one ingredient that the wizard had not disclosed, the only ingredient Aremis had not collected with his own hands. Perhaps it was not important, perhaps Galen had thought the King would not understand.

A small sigh filled the quiet room, and the Queen lifted one hand. Aremis smiled in relief and glanced at Galen who was watching the Queen intently.

Her eyes fluttered open and she breathed deeply the stagnant air of her room. The King rushed to the other side of her bed and took her hand in his. The five physicians, still maintaining a superior air about them, at least looked pleased at the Queen’s revival.

The Queen continued to take in deep breaths and shakily exhale them, it was only after a time that Aremis noted that it was as if she could not get the air to her lungs fast enough, he frowned. He glanced once more at Galen, who was smiling, almost grinning, down at the Queen, perhaps he had not noticed, as Aremis had, that all was not quite well.

The Queen’s breaths turned to gasps, and the tone of the room quickly flipped as the King noticed her distress.

“Wizard, what is happening?” He demanded. The physicians rushed to the King’s side and began cooling their Queen’s face and checking her pulse.

“I’m sure I don’t know Majesty.” Galen replied, staring stupidly at the Queen. Aremis turned to his Master’s kit and searched the bottles desperately for some sort of solution; a draught for gout, another for aches, one for worms, another for baldness. There was nothing that might help the Queen breathe easily.

Everyone watched the life that had so gradually returned to her, quickly escape her once more, except this time there would be no more chances to bring it back. The king was cursing, the physicians were in a fluster, only Galen stood still, staring down at her with an unreadable expression on his face.

Her last breath was long and unqueenly, Aremis watched her eyes bulge as even they tried to feast off the dead air in the room. She lurched forward in a hungry convulsion, then fell back heavily on the bed, eyes glaring at the ceiling, mouth fixed agape, body twisted askew. She was dead.

“What have you done?”

It took Aremis some time to realise that the question had come rom Galen, and that he was directing it at him.

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T.S. Eliot in the Ligertwood toilets

words

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anonymous There are eyes on this tram

I can see through the reflection

The sedimentary grey lulls placid soma

As red brick and cream facade whisper past

I feel coerced into the city

The sad green of abused trees sits mottled against the sheen of windows

Grey washed sky and burning red lights

The roads are miserable

This is the summer.

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The Frogs 62

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Words

Dagmar Morello

photography Ellie Cheesman

Met one at the pub down the road. He insisted on giving me a lift home. It took maybe a minute at the most.

‘Nice car,’ I said, noting the comfortable leather seats and the wood panel interior, ‘What is it?’

‘A Jaguar.’ He’d won some money and bought himself a nice toy. We christened it by fucking on the bonnet under the stars. On our next date he refused to drive it to the local cinema. It would be damaged in the car park. So, I drove my aging Mitsubishi Colt. He fell asleep during the movie. I left before the credits rolled. He was still snoring.

Another one I met at a party: a bus driver by day who fancied himself a lover by night. We leapt into bed before dinner… you know, the type that wants to forego the flirting and foreplay.

‘I bet you’ve never had better than this,’ he said. ‘If sex was an Olympic sport, we’d win gold.’ I think it was meant as a compliment.

Then, there was the coffee connoisseur. Asked me where I wanted to go.

‘Glenelg,’ I said. It’s close to my place – let’s not drag it out too much, after all.

‘Actually, I thought we’d go to Norwood.’

‘Umm… why ask me where I want to go if you’ve already decided?’

He ordered coffee the ‘right’ way - the ‘wog’ way, with a glass of cold water on the side. Insisted on ‘ciao’ instead of ‘bye’, refusing to allow me out of the car until I’d said it in return. Shocked him when I said I didn’t want to see him anymore.

And still another. On the upside, at least that one owned his own house. The main feature of the backyard was the randomly scattered old lounge suites. These were useful, apparently, when friends gathered for bonfire parties. We tested his waterbed. I left before dawn with a sore back and gritty eyes.

The one with his own consultancy business, whatever that means, took me to his sister’s place. Did that mean he was serious? I mean, meeting the family? But no, he wanted to show me the views over the city, plus the room downstairs with the pool table and built-in bar. His own tiny inner city rental unit was, after all, not the place to take a date.

Oh, there were so many more. One called me a prude when I refused to go to the casino. Motorbike guy was lots of fun but decided that someone he met at work was more fun. Shame about that one. The paramedic was dating a few of us at the same time - and why not? And it was a bit of a drag when the one whose wife left him the week before called me at work to explain exactly how ‘over her’ he was.

My flatmate answered the phone while I was making the dinner and chatted to the next one for over an hour – vetting him.

‘This one’s a keeper,’ she mouthed as she handed the phone over.

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The First Time He Asked t “What do you want?” Mel croaked at Nathan. He stood on the concrete slab outside her flat entrance. The sunlight behind him hurt her eyes. She had a snotty nose and a throaty cough. Jackie, her flatmate, had dragged her out of bed to go to the door.

“You have to go, he looks…he said just for a minute,” She’d insisted.

Mel had proped herself against the open doorway, she longed to merge back into the mattress and block out the world with her quilt; she had nothing to say to Nathan.

He licked his lips and twisted a watch about his wrist. It’s loose, Mel thought. When they were still students, Mel had gone without to buy that watch for his twenty-first birthday. She observed his drawn face. His body had shrunk, collapsed in on itself. It had been six months since she’d seen him, since they had communicated, since she had blocked his number. When Mel had discussed plans to live together, Nathan had withdrawn like a turtle.

She had thought it inevitable and felt broken by his empty stare.

The links of the watch folded and clinked as he repositioned the watch face to the back of his wrist. “I just wanted to give this to you,” Nathan said and pulled an envelope from his jeans. He held it in the space between them.

Mel looked at it and began to cough. She grabbed the envelope and between spasms managed, “Okay…” She continued to hack then caught her breath. “That’s it then?” Her chest heaved again.

He nodded.

“Thanks.”

Nathan stood still; his smile was dim.

It was his smile that had captured her attention. They’d met at Uni; Mel was studying Medicine and Nathan was studying Science. Some early courses had overlapped, so he was familiar when in the Uni-bar, they’d bumped elbows and both slopped drinks. His grin was open, without guile and engaged his entire face and hazel eyes. He seemed genuine and vulnerable. He was persistent and made Mel feel the best version of herself. Now Mel could see this smile was not right but blocked the image out.

“Right,” she murmured, “goodbye.” And closed the door.

Back on her bed Mel fell asleep. She woke as shadows crept into the room and opened the envelope. Mel recognised Nathan’s spidery handwriting in blue biro on a scrap of lined paper. Just a few lines. When it was dark Jackie came into her room with a cup of soup.

“So, tell me,” She urged. Mel handed over the note. Jackie scanned it. “Shit Mel! This is a proposal!”

Mel felt feverish, her mouth distorted.

“He says how much he loves you,” Jackie continued. “He wants to spend the rest of his life with you. He’s fucking lost without you Mel.” Mel shivered. “I guess when you say like that, it is. I’m going back to sleep.”

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It was the second time Nathan had asked her.

The first time Nathan had asked was on the beach during her sixth-year summer break. Nathan had compressed his study and was perusing doctoral research. They both revelled in the sea. After they body-surfed Mel laid on a beach towel to let the hot sun dry her skin. Nathan had pulled on a T-shirt and smeared sunscreen over his roman nose.

“Want me to do your back?” he asked.

“Yeah, thanks.” She pulled her long sun-bleached hair to the side and his strong hands moved from her low back over her shoulders in firm strokes.

“That feels good,” she mumbled.

He bent down and touched his lips against the back of her neck. “You’re beautiful.”

She rolled over and they kissed. Mel inhaled the scent of zinc and jasmine.

Nathan was propped over her. “I love you Mel…will you marry me?”

Mel placed her hand on his still ocean cooled cheek. She’d often said she loved him and meant it, but in this moment, for the first time, she felt in her bones that this man could be someone she would be able to love for a long time.

“I love you too Nate…can you come back to that question in a few years?” she replied.

After the letter, and when Mel had recovered, she called him. Their long conversation began a process where Nate showed Mel his words were more than those invoked by lips pressed under the sun, or a desperate scrawl on torn notepaper. Mel exposed herself again. In time they moved in together. Later they expanded with excitement when they bought a house. They renovated the kitchen and bathroom, worked as a team and bickered over design choices. Mel planted her favourite Australian natives and Nate nurtured herbs for cooking; he was the primary chef. They rescued Whisky, a black happy dog, and walked together on the beach. Whisky greeted them both with full body-wagging adoration at the end of each workday.

One evening as they watched Netflix with Whisky curled up between them, Nate blurted out, “We were talking in the tearoom today.”

Whisky lifted her head and Mel turned to look at Nate. “Hmm?” “Discussing, if it’s better to plan a big fancy proposal or just be low key, you knowspontaneous… what do you think?”

Whisky turned her head towards Mel. Nate stared at her.

Mel laughed, fondled Whiskey’s velvety button ears and spoke to the dog, “You’d think he’d know the answer to that!”

Words

Julianne Stobie 65

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The Kangaroo and the Fifth boy The local Facebook group pinged. “How can people go and murder innocent kangaroos?” The words triggered the scent of blood-iron in his nostrils, metallic on the back of his tongue. Throbs pounded in his wrists. His fingers trembled as they sandpapered against his temples, attempting to scratch away a mangled image. The glow from the lap-top monstered his unshaven face. Millie had already fallen asleep beside him.

“Fuck it,” he thought and snapped the screen shut. He hunkered down and cocooned under the quilt.

Thank God it wasn’t Millie’s Mini.

----The Jeep wove up from the valley floor as first light outlined roadside eucalypts. Primed for the day, he wore a starched navy uniform, paramedic patches on the shoulders. He decelerated as the car approached a T-junction. The silhouette of a muscled Roo emerged from shadowy stalks on the opposite side of the road.

Risk assessment-SHIT! His right leg spasmed and the airbag exploded!

Dust. Coughing. Ears ringing.

The vehicle skidded and stopped. The engine was still running; the headlights channelled onto a gnarled tree.

Heart thumping. Wrists jabbing. So much dust…ringing ears. Risk management- turn off engine. Self-assessment-soft tissue.

He drummed at his ears. Outside the Jeep his legs trembled and a violet tinge suffused into the morning. The front end and bonnet were crumpled. He was incredulous. “One bloody jump!” he murmured.

Millie would travel in her Mini after him. He pulled out his mobile. “I’ve hit a Roo Mill… I’m okay,” he spoke clear and steady.

When Millie arrived, they hugged for a long time. Together they searched the undergrowth and gums for the marsupial. It was distorted around a weathered fence post. Browning fluid bubbled from its gaping mouth; its head had a new angle like a horse’s hindleg, and it glared at him through garnet eyes. The full lashes blinked in slow motion.

“MATTIE!” he screamed.

In the dark, Millie’s hand squeezed his.

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Words

Julianne Stobie

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photography Ellie Cheesman issue8hearsay#1.indd 67

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the ri

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id e

so

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photography

Ellie Cheesman

Words Annabel Fedcesin Gentle winds tickle blades around my toes Without a second thought I dig deep down The earth takes me as a bush gifts a rose Like Alice in the rabbit hole, I drown In things that my mind cannot comprehend My hands pull roots and rip leaves to ground me Sensations run like wildfires, pushed to bend To the will of something beyond my plea In absence of addiction, nothingness It takes hold and throws a new world to dust Unapologetic of my illness And yet somehow, I still long for the gust In stillness I wait for anything to Came sweep me up from my eternal blue

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