Dircksey Campus Cut Volume 3

CONTENTS

Welcome to Dircksey ............... page 2

Evan Smith

Watchmacallit ............................. page 4

Jodie How

Veiled Narratives: Subversions of Concealment ............................... page 8

Xue Li

The Lotterys Coming to Peth ........................... page 14

Alec Steffans

Geographe Bay ............................ page 20

Jodie How

Resistance Is ................................. page 24

Alec Steffans

Signs of Life .................................. page 27

Jodie How

Exhibition ........ .pages 3, 7 , 23, 26 & 35

Elisa Von Perger

CONTRIBUTORS

DIRCKsey editorial team

Dircksey Editorial Team

Dircksey editorial team

Editor-in-chief: Evan Smith

Editor: Evan Smith

dirckseyeditor@ecuguild.org.au

dirckseyeditor@ecuguild.org.au

Sub-Editor: Izabelle French

Sub-Editor: Fraser Scully

Marketing & Promotion: Lauren Reed

editors@ecuguild.org.au

Graphic Design: Evan Smith

Contributing writers and artists

Marketing & Promotion: Lauren Reed l.reed@ecuguild.org.au

Dylan Gills

Evan Smith

Sarah Staker

Contributing Writers and Artists

Evan Smith

Danae Matthews

Izabelle French

Alexis Palliser

Elisa Von Perger

Alec Steffans

Jodie How

Xue Li

Maddy Watt

Happiness Obidke

Mahdi Madelatparvar

Content Warning

Dircksey may contain topics that can be confronting for readers. These topics include racism, homophobia, violence, blood, hateful language, death, animal cruelty and mental illness.

No individual trigger warnings are given in the pages of the magazine, so please, take care.

The opinions expressed in this magazine are not necessarily those of the Dircksey

Editor, sub-editor, Edith Cowan University or the Edith Cowan University Student Guild.

All reasonable care is taken to ensure Dircksey articles, and other information in the magazine, is current and accurate at the time of publication, however, no responsibility can or will be taken by the entities listed above, should an issue of Dircksey contain errors or omissions.

The opinions expressed within this magazine are not necessarily those of the Dircksey Editor, Edith Cowan University, or the ECU Student Guild. All reasonable care is taken to ensure Dircksey articles, and other information in the magazine, is current and accurate at the time of publication, however, no responsibility can or will be taken by the entities listed above, should an issue of Dircksey contain errors or omissions.

Dircksey acknowledges the traditional owners of the land on which this magazine was created, the Whadjuck Nyoongar people.

If you would like to contribute to Dircksey, you can contact the editor at dirckseyeditor@ecuguild.org.au https://dircksey.com/contributors/ or via 0431 176 607

Dircksey acknowledges the traditional owners of the land on which this magazine was created, the Whadjuck Nyoongar people.

If you would like to contribute to Dircksey, you can contact the editor via the listed email above, or visit us on https://dircksey.com.au

WELCOME to DIRCKSEY - SEM 1, 2024

A NOTE FROM THE EDITOR

Welcome back!

Can you believe it? We’re officially halfway done with semester one, and what a ride it’s been! As the dust settles on what has surely been a flurry of busy schedules, drama and assignments, take a moment to relax and have a gander at this new issue of ECU’s favourite, and only, student-lead magazine .

From those first day nerves (yawn) to the last-minute cramming sessions, we’ve been through quite a bit already. But you know what? Through the ups and downs, we’ve come out stronger, wiser, and maybe a little sleep deprived.

So, what exactly has happened this semester? Well, we had the Oscars, the city campus progressed, social trends came and went, Woolworths went on a villain arc, Tasmania showcased its new boy-scout AFL kit, and Marvel movies, well, continue to exist.

On a more serious note, several conflicts have continued to rage on in our world, and to those effected, please know that there is support available within both our student community and the wider university. There are no sides to be taken in conflicts like these when so many innocent lives are being affected, just a common goal of being the best we can be in supporting those around us.

As we gear up for backend of the Semester, let’s carry forward the lessons we’ve learned – both inside and outside of ECU, and continue to be compassionate and all-round good eggs.

So, here’s to Semester One – the highs, the lows, and everything in between.

PHOTO: ECU

PHOTO : ECU

WATCHAMACALLIT

WRITTEN BY Jodie how

I search through the items in my handbag: tissues, glasses, those whatchamacallits that open things. What’re they called? Oh, it doesn’t matter – my shopping list isn’t here.

I look up and squint. Toilet rolls. Tissues. No, I don’t think so. I wheel past each aisle with my trolley, reading the signs. Pet food. Nope. Health food. Yuck.

On impulse, I turn down the cracker aisle. Oh, Ritz! I pick up a packet. This is the only kind Tom will eat. Better take another packet. He does eat a lot of them.

As I place the boxes in the trolley, I see there’s a rubber chicken next to my roast chicken. When I pick it up it squeaks so loudly that I jump. A customer down the other end of the aisle looks up and smiles at me. I stare back, close my mouth, look down at the floppy thing in my hand.

I don’t know how it got in my trolley. I shake it. What would I do with a toy chicken for goodness sake? Must’ve been some youth playing a prank. Well, whatever – it fits nicely in a gap between two cracker boxes on the shelf in front of me.

Now, what next? I put my hand in my handbag and feel around for the whatchamacallit. The paper with the foods. It’s not here.

Wheeling past another aisle, I study the picture of the pickle on the cracker on the Ritz box and wonder if it’s real or – what’s the word? – Digil? Digit? Oh, it doesn’t matter.

The Peter Piper rhyme inflates like a bubble in my head. My mother used to recite it to me whenever I was quiet for too long in the car. Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. I never learnt where the pickled peppers Peter Piper picked ended up. How could he just lose them straight after picking them? A whole container. Maybe he ate them.

Oh,thelittlegreen,bumpy,slicedwhatchamacallits… gherkins! A selection is right in front of me. I pick the best ones. Spring Gully brand. Tom likes those. I place them in my trolley and spot a large tin of Spam. I don’t know how that got in there. Neither of useatsSpam.Likedogfood,thatstuff. Therectangle tin fits nicely in the gap where my jar of gherkins came from.

I head toward the conveyer belt whatchamacallits at the front of the shop. I pause – yes, it seems like the right amount of groceries in my trolley – then line up behind a teenager with crazy blue hair.

When I get home, a small, white dog resembling an old mop head greets me at the door, yapping. It licks me. Friendly little thing. Must be a stray that Tom brought home while I was out.

‘Tom?’

Tom doesn’t answer. I wonder where he’s gotten to and why a box of his stuff is sitting just inside the front door. Maybe he sorted through his clothes again. I jab the box with my foot. It must be for the Samuels. No, that’s not right.The Sunnies? No. Oh, it doesn’t matter.

In the kitchen, I unpack the shopping while I wait for the kettle to boil. Last to go away are the two boxes of Ritz. Oh, there are already ten on the shelf in the pantry! I scratch my head, thinking, but then the Peter Piper rhyme springs open in my mind like a jack-in-the-box. I really do need to work out where that boy put his peppers.

Veiled Narratives: Subversions of Concealment

EXHIBITION CREATED BY XUE LI

Veiled Narratives explores the nuanced dialectic between concealment and revelation within the lives of Chinese women, using traditional Chinese silk fans as a symbolic medium. Historically, these fans were instruments of hiding for women, shielding them from the external male gaze.

Only after the removal of fan ceremony of their wedding, women can put down the fan and show her true self to her husband.

This collection reinterprets the fan as a canvas, displaying objects that denote traditional feminine virtues like beauty and caregiving, exploring the societal demands and objectifications that continue to shroud women’s true selves.

It invites viewers to reflect on whether modern Chinese women have truly transcended the shadows of societal impositions or if contemporary forms of concealment prevail. Through this series, the objective is to ignite dialogues about Chinese femininity and identity, encouraging reflections on women’s existential journeys in finding their authentic places amidst the continuous interplay of tradition and transformation.

OUT AND ABOUT WITH THE ECU GUILD

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The LOTTERY’S COMIN TO PERTH

WRITTEN BY ALEC STEFFANS

Scrubbing the filthy microwaved meat pie spillings off the bumpy faux-expensive dinner plates had become Harry’s time for reflection. Something he never had before he was won in the lottery. Before, cold streets and stinking alleys were his home, he was one of many Perth Derros.

The lottery in Sydney supposedly fixed the homelessness problem there. Offering household owners a one time, tax free remittance of $40,520 to take in one of the disadvantaged members of the community and help them get on their feet and become a valuable, contributing member of society. Within 2 years the program resulted in a total removal of homeless citizens within Sydney.

Harry’s caretakers had decided when he first arrived that he would have to become a cleaner or groundskeeper and decided that for the first year of him living with them, he would have to learn those skills by cleaning and maintaining the household for the family of five, then he could start paying them back once he got a job thanks to the skills they were showing him.

It had been several months since Harry left the freedom of his stray living, months of scrubbing dishes and toilets, mopping, vacuuming, raking, mowing, weeding, painting, laundering clothes, ironing clothes, dusting and all the other tedious jobs required to make a house a home.

All this time Harry would start his day and end his nights thanking the family for allowing him to contribute to society. At the end of his first year with them, he was even allowed to come on the family holiday to a lakeside cabin in the forests down south.

Riding in the trailer under the tarp brought back memories of sleeping under the highway, where the wind barely reached and the police never bothered to look. The trailer was nowhere near as warm, with it’s cold metal tray insulating none of the early morning winds that whipped the top corner of the tarp the entire five hour drive, only stopping when the family had a break to stretch their legs and have a bite to eat.

Harry just sat in the trailer, enjoying the muesli bars the youngest of the children had given him for the journey. She was always kind to Harry, letting him take longer between the dusting and moppings in her room than the others, and sneaking him her leftover burgers and chips when the family would get takeaway.

When they arrived, the family left to go for a picnic and a hike to a nearby dam while harry dusted and cleaned the cabin for them. Outside the kitchen window was a car Harry hadn’t seen before, a large white Ute with a large tool case in the back that looked more like a coffin.

His instructions were to really impress the other family that would be staying there, get the place all cleaned up and make sure he didn’t stink. If he did a good enough job he would be allowed to eat at the same time as the family – as long as he was still ready to do the dishes when they came. So he got to work.

Hot dinner was a rare treat for him, usually only received when he was allowed to cook himself simple dinners in the microwave when the family were all out of the house overnight and he kept himself motivated by imaging what sort of hot foods he might get at the conclusion of his efforts.

For hours Harry laboured in the dust-filled cabin, the rooms that weren’t occupied by his caretakers were already packed away and tidy. In the main living area, there was an impressive fireplace that had an even more impressive, polished hunting rifle above the mantle. As he worked the day away, his mind kept creeping back to that rifle, which seemed oddly well-maintained for a decoration. Once he had finished inside and left it sparkling, he ventured outside, where there were the two family’s cars, a dirt road stretching into the forest where they came from and a garden shed, which stood aside from the warm and cosy cabin like a teenager embarrassed to be seen in a public embrace.

The one dust filled window into the shed revealed a spacious workplace inside, with an oil-stained floor and a table of tools that seemed suited to all manner of tasks, not just auto repair. In the centre of the workplace was a rolling chair, it’s leather seat and backing cracked, the foam stuffing spilling out and a coil of well-used rope, waiting patiently on the old lumpy leather.

Harry decided to not let his imagination run wild, and as the daylight began to fade, He spotted the family approaching the cabin with another group added to their numbers.

The head of the other family was a large, wellfed man. From the little bits Harry had overheard leading up to this trip, he was one of the managers at the father’s office, where they were doing some sort of campaign to raise everyone’s wages to make life better for everyone. He gave Harry the glance he imagined the man gave to sausages at the butcher as he waddled up the stairs and through the door, as did the rest of his equally round family.

“Good work mate” the father of Harry’s family firmly complimented. “I think Mr. Chambers is happy with what you’ve done to his place. I’ll leave you a plate on the balcony when we cook.”

The two fathers manned the barbecue with the enthusiasm of a coach watching their team secure a victory. Talking shop and swallowing their liquor almost as fast as they could pour it. Once they had filled a massive platter with every cut and type of meat the average butcher could make, they shuffled inside to feed their combined forces.

The ECU Jets: Bringing Back The

Harry sat out on the porch steps with his hot dinner – a rissole between two pieces of bread –and looked out over the lake, up at the stairs, painted across the sky like street lights in heaven. From around the corner of the balcony, out of sight, the glass door slid open and Harry heard the two fathers continuing their conversation.

“-twelve times, that’s impressive, how have you managed to look after them AND keep your money? I have to force myself to leave ours alone overnight with electricity when we all go. I tell myself it’s necessary for him, but he could go one night without right? I mean, that’s what he was used to do, I’d be giving him a reminder of home”

Their laughter scattered into the still night air, obnoxious and oblivious to the invisible lump around the corner.

“Well the thing with the lottery mate, is that they’ll pay you to take them in, but there’s no check-ups or nothing. The government just wants them off the streets so they can SAY they have no homeless problem. So, what me and the wife are angling for now, is to raise the minimum wage for all and quickly, before all the prizes are won up. Higher the minimum wage, the more you get from the government. As for what we do with them, well, you’re here in our cabin, no one around for kilometres. When the kids go to bed, we ask the bum to go get us some firewood, from a stockpile a few hundred metres into the trees. If they actually manage to get back without falling for the traps in between here and there, they find us armed with the hunting rifle and some of the sharp tools we keep in the shed.

So far, we’ve had ones that begged, one of them tried to fight, didn’t get more than a couple metres towards me before he got dropped by a bullet. One, I kid you not, shit his pants and then still had the audacity to crawl towards me, dripping his filth on the grass. I had to tell him it was just a bad joke so that he’d clean it up for me before I had him sit on the throne for an appointment in the shed”

Again, laughter sprang forth, but to Harry, it sounded more like the hunting call and response of a predator, notifying it’s partner of available meat.

“Anyway” the owner of the wooden tomb continued, “I’d noticed that you kept yours around for longer than most, and normally the guys at work will ask to come out here with my family to get rid of theirs when they’ve finished with their fun. I was concerned you thought they deserved the second chance, but based on our chats earlier, I think you’ve got a naughty side like the rest of us at the office. Mines locked in the back of the ute, but do you wanna send yours off to get us some wood?”

Harry didn’t wait for the response, silently he crept off the stairs and began running across the grass towards the trees, keeping an eye out for whatever surprises might lay in wait for him.

Through the dark woods he ran, thankfully the moon shone bright enough to through the trees to cause hidden metal teeth, sharpened to a blade, to flash from their hiding spots.

The branches filled with leaves slapped him in the face as he ran. Beyond the woodpile, where the ground was slick with leaves and thick with roots, all his efforts were on not tripping or slipping, and not focusing on where that tell-tale glint of the predator’s traps lay. After stepping over a particularly tall vine and being simultaneously wacked across the face, Harry heard a SCHTHK and felt metal teeth shunt bone as he fell headfirst into the root of the next tree.

Adrenaline already pumping through him, Harry glanced down at the crimson mess that was becoming his leg, he knew he couldn’t scream and alert the fathers of where he was, so he bit hard into the root and with his mouth full of saliva and bitter, sticky sap, he reached down to push on the trap release.

His foot free, Harry took his shirt off and wrapped it around the cascade of blood that had already begun flowing from his leg. Shirtless, bleeding and mouth burning from the sap, Harry’s run from the predation had turned into a death crawl. Further and deeper into the forest Harry fled. As fast as his one good leg would let him, all the while aware of the increasing symptoms of his rapid blood loss.

The sound of snapping branches and heavy footsteps from behind made him flinch out of his increasing shock. Fervently, harry looked around for somewhere to hide, somewhere the fathers wouldn’t find him, and when he failed to find anywhere that could hide is scrawny frame, Harry Climbed.

The forked trunk made an easy start to his ascent, up into the branches, unaware and not caring of the noise his scrambling was making. Higher, into the protection of the branches, hoping that the wooden sticks would shield him from a bullet, and catch him before he hit the ground, should he fall.

Harry heard the footsteps soften as they approached the spot where he had made his climb, clinging to the cold rough bark he willed his ragged breath to be as quiet as possible.

“I definitely heard him climb up one of these trees Dalvin, just not sure which” The voice of someone who had been telling Harry what to do to earn his place chuckled out breathily from below.

“I’m not too fussed if he’s gone up to be honest with you mate, he’ll die from blood loss before he makes it to anywhere worthwhile. Let’s head back, I got some Johnnie Walker for us – consider it the consolation prize for tonight’s ruined hunt.”

Warm tears silently streaked from Harry’s eyes, he didn’t want to die here, away from everything he knew.

“Thanks Dal, are you sure this one won’t be able to tell anyone?”

Harry relaxed his body, allowing his weight to be supported by the can-width branch, his aching muscles throbbed with every beat of his heart.

“Nah this one isn’t going to last long enough. Not with that leg wound. We can wait around a bit longer if you want, but tomorrow we can just get mine, he’s more beginner level for you, you’ve accidentally been feeding yours too much it seems”

Again that evil laughter rang out. Laughter that was full of arrogance, full of spite for anyone lesser and completely lacking in self-awareness. Harry could feel himself fading from consciousness, with every step the fathers took away, his vision faded. Nestling himself into a secure position in the canopy, he tightened the shirt around his wound, feeling the blood wring from the fabric and into his shaking hands, he allowed himself a soft grunt of pain as the makeshift tourniquet did it’s best to strangle and clog the gashes on either side of this shinbone. Harry breathed in a deep breath and as he exhaled, his consciousness finally slipped out of the treetop.

Harry awoke to bird trills coming from all around him, the sun was peaking over the horizon, and he could no longer feel the lower half of his leg. Cautiously, he tested the branches below him one arm at a time, making sure his shirt, which was now stuck to his leg from equal parts blood and the knot he had tied, didn’t get removed. Climbing down to the fork in the trunk, he lowered his weight onto his good leg, and after finding a strong branch, began hobbling further away from the cabin and its predatory occupants.

Further and further into the trees he pushed himself, wincing at every bush and fern that clawed desperately at his leg, begging for the cloth to be removed so that he could fertilise the forest. After hours of painful hiking, he stumbled onto bitumen and into the view of a very surprised couple on their romantic vacation.

“We should have given him some money. He needed kindness, not just to be dumped at the hospital.”

The radio played softly between the tense couple, before a news update relaxed and satisfied them both.

“With the success of the lottery program in all major cities, the Australian government has released plans to expand the lottery system into rural towns.”

Thomas pulled every trick he had to get Emma talking to him again. Played their song, asked about how her mother was going, he even tried apologising. When she finally decided to end her silence, she turned down the news that was playing over the radio and said

geographe bay

WRITTEN by jodie how

Busselton has seen visitors come and go via land and sea since colonisation in 1832. Geographe Bay welcomes locals and tourists all year round with its briny bowl of recreational offerings: riding, walking, swimming, jet skiing, boating, fishing, and picnicking.

This curve of the Southwest coast is far from untouched with its redeveloped foreshore, bitumen carparks, aggregate walkways, and jetties, but it’s a place that has always drawn crowds. West of the foreshore, there’s a quiet beach where I often sit. Here, I remember to be present, quiet, reflective. Here, I’m taught by what is tangible and what is intangible. Here, I connect with something greater than myself.

Today, I park my car at the end of King Street, on the waning edge of the designated recreation area, and walk barefoot across the bitumen, past the shipping-container coffee kiosk, through a gap in the limestone retaining wall and onto the velveteen shore. I plod along the firmer sand that hugs the high-water mark, past the family of shushing wanangs on my left. Geographe Bay Yacht Club faces the ocean, separating itself from the beach with an expansive English lawn.

When I’ve walked far enough away from outdoor society, I stand a while. It feels like just me and the bay now. The long, toothpick-jetty and its salt-andpepper people are lines in the far distance. The four peaked rooves of the Interpretive Centre top tiny blue boxes at the base of the jetty; you can see these peaks from most spots along Geographe Bay. In the middle distance, a line of Norfolk Island pines are prickly arrows that draw my eyes upward to the clear, endless sky. I make a hand visor against the mid-morning glare and bring my sight back to the carpark.

A single Norfolk Island pine is waiting in front of the shipping container like a sturdy, ruffle-haired kid. Maybe it wants a milkshake. The smell of fox piss, thick and vinegary, wafts on the wind to sting my nose. I recognise the many introduced species and man-made structures as absurdly out of place. They’re strangely unpleasant, almost offensive.

Up from the water’s edge, my soles feel unsteady on the soft sand. I dig my feet into the ivory mineral grains of warmth until it looks like I’m standing on stumps. Despite the fine weather we’ve had all week, my toes detect dampness.

This limestone-rich land is the colour of my Englishrose skin and I wonder if that’s serendipitous or ironic when I think about belonging in Busselton. I can almost taste the salt borne on the wind that strokes the ocean; it tastes like comfort.

I sit a while and watch the glitzy sea toss up diamonds of light toward the sun. It’s quiet, but for the tiny waves fizzing onto the shore, the irregular sigh of the breeze, the ever-so-slight squeak of sand as my toes wiggle it around. Seagulls protest with throaty squawks in the distance – probably after someone’s soggy fish-and-chip leftovers. Occasionally there’s a dog yap or a human yell but the lapping water and buzz of noodas fade the people sounds out.

I shake sand from a brown necklace of dry sargassum nearby, and begin popping the little air bladders like bubble wrap. I’m waiting for a text message from my sister but I’ve purposely left my phone in the glovebox of my car. It doesn’t belong here. My screen is the panoramic view of the shore, ocean, horizon, and sky streaked with cirrus laid out before me.

The bay coaxes me to reflect on my place in the natural world; I feel small; I feel like a guest at nature’s table. If the bay were a person, I’d call her generous and eccentric, like a wise and ancient mother who serves fruit cake and tea in mismatched crockery. She unsettles me, while also making me feel warm and welcome.

This beach was once a backdrop for my human drama; I’d come here to privately uncork and empty my internal bottle of brackish water. That was shallow: to consider the bay as merely a catchment for my problems. But the bay isn’t a receptacle to collect my rubbish; not just a cleanser of my thoughts with its lullaby track of shooshing water; not just my equilibrium when 21st century living tips me sideways.

There are many stories here that I didn’t hear or see. The story of the ocean and how the coastline is receding at a rate of 10cm per year. Natural history and human history. The jetty with its stop-start constructions, numerous damages and rebuilds.

The countless shipwrecks that occurred along this coastline. Early commerce, international supplies and the port finally closing down trade. Tourism through the ages. Sovereignty, and how this land was never ceded to European settlers. I was blinded by my grasping need for nature to soothe. And while I will always value nature offering retreat and restoration like the fields of old Pastoral poetry, there are many more layers to the bay. I thought I knew this place well. But I don’t have kaartdijin3. This place is Undalup. I must learn to respect and treat this place as it should be respected and treated: as a complex entity that exists in its own right, on its own terms. But how do I do that?

I’ve known for some time that I live on, and enjoy all the benefits of, stolen land. This doesn’t sit well with me. I can’t make amends, and I can’t connect with this place like I deeply want to – how I imagine the Wardandi People (the saltwater people) must have before

those of us with pale skin came and spoiled the coast with infrastructure and foreign species and depleted the area of its natural resources. My connection to this place suddenly feels superficial. I have taken much and given little in return.

I can’t name this coastal plant, I don’t know that type of boyung. The Wardandi people must have known every inch of this place – every species, every movement, every part of the landscape. They had a right to call this place home. I can imagine how it might have been near wattern before settlers arrived: vibrant and peaceful. I imagine the ocean flowed through the Wardandi peoples’ veins like salt-blood. I imagine they used the driftwood to build shelters or burn fires; that the other elements here, like the rocks, the trees and the sand, also served some practical purpose for living. They had an affinity with this bay that generously provided them with seafood. They fished here for ngarie, bait fish, squid and careil, and taught the settlers how to fish here too. Now, Geographe bay is probed for rock lobster, pilchard, salmon, yarlalung, dubitch, shark, kulter, tailor and whiting. It’s close to being fished out. I suspect that not just commercial fishing is to blame. Tourism hasn’t only changed the land, it’s also changed the ocean.

Busselton’s tourism industry has a long history, beginning in 1885 when “lady visitors” from the Swan and elsewhere, stayed each year over summer. But while Busselton has always experienced a massive influx of seasonal visitors, I often feel an absence among the crowds, and even an absence at the quiet King Street beach. The Wardandi people should be here, on this sand, fishing this bay, not decimated in numbers, infiltrated by white culture, and

dispersed throughout Australia. White history here has been recorded in numerous volumes, but it is difficult to find records of Indigenous history not written by white people. The saltwater people are the ones who know this place and who own the stories that belong here. I want to know what Geographe Bay was like before we invaded. It was surely more vibrant than the tourist destination it has become today, where people’s countless pleasure activities are the main spark of the city. Afterall, Busselton is called the ‘Events Capital of W.A.’.

I didn’t acknowledge that this is, and always will be, Wardandi boodja, where the original saltwater people once lived harmoniously with the natural world. Now, I say, ‘Kaya’ and ask permission to sit a while. Although I can’t change my heritage, I can change my perspective. I am the visitor I have always suspected myself of being; the local tourist enjoying unceded land; the guest at nature’s vast banquet.

Before I stand to stroll back up the coast, I say, ‘Yanga’. I don’t bother to brush the sand off my feet before hopping into the car. I’ve been taught by this place yet again. I smile. When I bring my husband and son to Geographe Bay next time, maybe together we can learn what that plant thriving on the dune is called and that brown rock on the shore is known for, in both Noongar language and English.

RESISTANCE IS

WRITTEN by ALEC STEFFANS

They say that resistance is a measure of the opposition to current flow in an electrical circuit. Then they say the output impedance of an amplifier can be thought of as being the impedance (or resistance) that the load sees “looking back” into the amplifier when the input is zero. Working on the same principle as we did for the input impedance, the generalised formula for the output impedance can be given as: ZOUT = VCE/IC.

Wrong amplifier and wrong resistance, but that’s just one of the things they say.

We’re protesting the high emissions and nonchalance of all these faker famous celebrity goons. Me and my band shred on the front lines of the protests, Donny rigged our amps and gear to work on batteries, he says lithium batteries last the longest and they’re the best to charge.

Norrish and the nuts have become a symbol of the movement, we sometimes play in the city centre and the revolution happens around us. We’ve started six riots around three districts, our singer, Norrish, reckons we’re gonna burn these celebs right out of the sky. We’ve got big plans, apparently some hotshot singer who autotunes their voice and has teams of people write for them is coming in through the airport in a week. We’re rehearsing for them.

Norrish reckons we’re gonna play them our real music and show them the way, let our music change them and then that’ll change the world. Donny is working on getting the amps more electric and louder, Norrish is writing something he calls the speech song and the third nut, Jakob is busy writing letters to his family. He hasn’t seen them in months since we’ve been on the move, can’t let the fascist cops stop our rock, and apparently we might get caught soon according to Jakob. Norrish wouldn’t like that he’s writing letters to family and friends and that but I say power to Jakob, Norrish knows we don’t play by any rules, we rock hard, we rock on and we hard rock.

It’s the day of our rockin, no rules, protestaganza at the airport. Me and the boys got in through a back entrance by loading our gear into some airport van that a mate of Norrish got for us.

Apparently we paid a bunch of the airport baggage dudes to help us find out where the plane would be docking, it cost us all we’ve made from playing so far but that’s fine, Norrish says we won’t need any money after today, today we’re going to change the world! I guess that means we will become like a star trek type civilisation with no need for, like, material wealth and that. Rockin.

We can see the plane as it lands, it’s like a plane when it’s in the air but it has these wheels now so it’s like a car, but it’s still a plane. Then the planecar drive-flies itself over to the gate and Norrish hoofs it, screeching across the tarmac to come to rest underneath the gate tunnel where it connects to the plane and, like, sucks onto the planes neck. Norrish begins plugging all the amplifiers in and all the lights start blinking. I don’t remember there being as many blinking lights but what do I know, I’m the bass player.

Norrish picks up a bullhorn and directs his radical speech song intro towards the approaching crowd of airport security.

“The selfish celebrity class of societal leeches needs to be held accountable for their blatant lack of regard for the common people! The richest 10% of our society create more than forty times the carbon emissions than the rest of us! Some of you may know us as just another activist band trying to rile up the public in order to sell our merch. But after this special concert, you’ll see all we’re trying to sell is our message of equality for all!”

Norrish lowers the bullhorn, before grabbing a plastic bag and offering it out to Donny. He looks right at me and gives me the nod. I nod back, that’s the signal to start playing.

I begin slappin a funky little bass line and Donny produces a small handheld clacker looking plastic square from a plastic bag Norrish is holding and as I’m mid riff he looks at me and clenches his hand-

siGNS OF life

WRITTEN BY JODIE HOW

The nurse clamped down on Marnie’s forearm to keep her still while the microchip bit into her skin and burrowed deep into her muscle.

‘Okay?’ Dr Rashern asked, not looking up from the patient’s limb.

Marnie tried to remember the last time she’d felt okay. A memory glimmered behind her eyes. More than two years ago, she had been planting peas in the backyard with her older brother, Dave, as the sun was dipping below the uncapped, jagged fence. He’d thrown a handful of soil at her, and she’d tried to wrestle him down to the dust, but he’d slipped from her grip. His taunting had turned the playfight into a game of chasey. She hoped he was hiding now, somewhere safe, like he used to when her chasing had become seeking.

‘Marnie? Okay?’ An older woman leant on the other side of the bed and held Marnie’s free hand. Her mother was pallid and dehydrated and had the creased face of a smoker, even though she’d never smoked. Ever since pharmaceutical resources had run out, everyone looked worn.

Marnie refocused on her sterile surroundings and nodded. She had to admit, if only to herself, that it was nice to lay in a bed for a change. She’d forgotten how soft a mattress could be.

‘Done. Won’t even know it’s there by the time you leave.’ The doctor scrunched up the plastic medical packaging and threw it across the room into the bin.

Marnie looked at the flesh-coloured bandage on her arm. It was nothing like the yellow gauze they used in the government hospital when she was getting treatment there. This dressing fit snug like a second skin. She flexed her fingers and twisted her wrist but couldn’t feel the metal rod inside.

Dr Rashern rifled through the papers in her patient file and checked Marnie’s central line. It was still patent. The direct intravenous access point was a biproduct of previous hospital admissions and one that nobody had bothered to rectify.

The nurse matched the information on the IV bag with Marnie’s microchip details.

‘We’ll start the first transfusion now.’ Dr Rashern put the file under his arm, nodded at the nurse and left.

Marnie watched as the nurse primed the giving set and readied the pump. Clara – Clinical Nurse her badge read. She hung the bloated sack of blood on the IV pole, its plastic hook squeaking as it swayed. Marnie couldn’t read the label properly but VH+ stood out in a large, bold font. Her blood type was B negative.

‘Is that the same as O negative? You know, universal?’ Marnie asked.

‘It’s the best blood type. Heal you for good, you lucky girl.’ Clara smiled at her as she hooked Marnie up and then left.

Luck wasn’t something Marnie had ever considered part of her deal. But because she was terminal, not yet 21 years old and still got her period, her mother’s application to Global Medical’s transfusion therapy trials was accepted. They didn’t care that her left leg was lame and they didn’t care that a doctor from the government hospital had caused it.

Her mother smiled, in that way people do when they’re feeling more anxious than happy; there was no light on inside.

‘I’ll be fine, Mum. You said yesterday there’s a ninetyfive percent success rate.’

‘I know.’ She patted Marnie’s bony hand. ‘I just want you to get better.’ She rooted around in her bag for a pen and opened the free GM Lifestyle Magazine, flicking to the middle where the bumper crossword was.

The pump’s gentle, constant grind filled Marnie’s pounding head.

‘A word for red blood cells… any idea?’

Marnie had to grab her retort by the tail before it flew from her mouth. Disgusting, she thought. ‘Nope.’

Once the blood reached Marnie’s chest, she had to close her eyes. She could almost feel the blood oozing into her body. They hadn’t said where it came from when she’d asked them at the interview, only that it was a ‘superior biomedical product’. Apparently, the source was irrelevant.

Marnie reminded herself over and over that she was doing this for her mother, and for Dave, wherever he was. Oh, Dave. He had to still be alive. She needed him to be alive.

While her mother muttered to herself over the crossword, Marnie counted the small holes in each white ceiling panel, then counted how many panels to multiply the holes by.

Marnie was dreaming of searching for Dave around her old neighbourhood when an infernal itch like fire ants trekking through her ribs startled her awake. Like a reflex, her hand went to her central line. Clara appeared, seized her wrist and forced her hand away.

‘Where’s mum?’ Marnie asked, a little too loudly.

‘Only fifty mils left. I’ll slow the rate so it doesn’t prickle so much.’ The nurse released Marnie’s wrist and pressed some buttons on the pump.

‘Do you need straps to help?’ Clara asked, watching Marnie scratch her chest.

The girl met her gaze and moved her hand to scratch her head instead. She pulled a sheath of hair in front of her face. It was longer.

‘No, of course you don’t. You’re a good girl, I can tell.’ Clara winked. ‘I’ll be back when this beeps.’

Marnie’s mother entered holding a takeaway cup and another free magazine, with her tatty handbag swinging from her forearm.

Marnie could smell the coffee as if it were right under her nose. ‘Geez. How many shots have you got in that?’

‘They only give you one, but the milk is real! How’re you feeling?’

Marnie nodded and swallowed the acid bile that had swelled up her throat. She was tired of every relentless variation of that question. She examined her ragged fingernails – they’d also grown – and resisted the urge to scrape them across the skin under her hospital gown.

She writhed and dug her nails into her abdomen, drawing blood.

Several staff rushed in and held her down to strap her body to the bed.

Dr Rashern injected something blue into her line. Marnie’s eyes fully dilated. Her pupils were like the black orbs of a night creature.

‘Stop the transfusion. Please!’ Her mother clutched the doctor’s lapel, sobbing torturously.

Security was called to escort Marnie’s mother to a ‘safe place’ but Marnie wasn’t aware of this, or anything else happening around her. She’d blacked out and was being wheeled into ICU. They unstrapped her and stripped her, then wired her up for monitoring.

A nurse asked Dr Rashern if she should stop the transfusion. The doctor shook his head, watching Marnie’s vitals stabilise. He wiped his temple with the hem of his scrubs and muttered disbelief over Marnie being the fifth fertile patient they’d had to put on life support that week. They all knew that a Species Survival staff member would be back to ask questions.

Halfway through the second transfusion, Marnie’s temperature spiked and she leaned forward to vomit a stream of bloody chyme into the blankethammock between her knees. A clawing sensation started in her gut, as if a parasite was inside her using its pincers to get out.

She screamed.

Outside the smooth, white veneer of Global Medical’s ICU, the old bones of the building showed. Marnie walked down the dimly lit corridor with its brownstained ceiling and flaking plaster walls.

A low and distant moan beckoned her underground.

She pressed the LB button on the lift and stepped inside to plunge down the hospital’s main artery. When the steel doors clanged open on the lower basement floor, she leant her upper body forward to scope out her surroundings.

She turned right as she stepped out of the lift and walked against the side of the dank service tunnel, going as fast and quiet as possible, avoiding puddles along the way. As the moan grew louder, Marnie chased it through the winding bowels of the building.

She approached a set of frosted glass doors with a sign above that said Blood Bank C. She tried pushing through, and then pulling the doors, but they wouldn’t budge. Finding a laundry nook just down from the entrance, she folded her small, thin frame in beside the rack of gowns and sheets.

An orderly wheeled an empty trolley through. He whistled down the tunnel as the blood bank doors wheezed backwards.

Marnie caught the edge of one of the doors just as it was about to seal shut and slipped inside.

It was dark and vast, like a hangar. The space functioned as a storage area for old medical equipment and supplies; there were boxes and other items, like IV poles, lining the walls. She registered water dripping somewhere nearby.

Next to another set of double doors, she hid in the shadow cast by a box tower, and considered the nonsensical grammar of ‘double doors.’

The moan brought her attention back to the room just as a pair of white cloaks pushed through the doors, speed-walking and talking as fast as their feet. Behind their backs, Marnie snuck through the opening. She caught a snippet of their conversation before the doors clunked shut.

‘…need to up the ketamine doses and replenish the holy water more regularly…’

Another long service tunnel. This one had flickering ceiling lights and long, deep gouges in the concrete walls that exposed patches of ruddy brickwork. What would a hospital need with holy water? she wondered as she walked. It was only then, as she watched where she was stepping, that she realised she could fully feel her lame leg.

The tunnel opened into a circular laboratory that reeked of chemicals, making Marnie’s eyes hurt.

She ducked behind an empty water tank. Through the glass, she could see distorted images of naked bodies in tanks that lined the other side of the room.

She closed her eyes and swallowed the lump in her throat, then shifted her head to see around the side of the glass.

Corpse-pale bodies were suspended with their heads and hands bobbing to the humming flow of liquid cycling through the tanks. The arms and legs were chained to steel bars and tubes filled with ruby fluid went into the bodies on one side and came out of them on the other.

Marnie’s gaze followed the numerous lines of tubes going in, out, and along. Her attention was pulled to a halt at the last occupied tank. In it, a young man hung limp from the crossed bars. He looked no different to all the others, but this one, she somehow knew, was the one she heard moaning inside her head. ****

Marnie roused long enough to feel her lungs burning up. Her body jolted out of control as alarms blended into a distortion of sound and hands pressed her still. She knew her life was on a knife’s sharp edge, but she couldn’t speak. When the suctioning started, Marnie plummeted back down, down, down to the hospital’s underbelly and the cacophony of the ICU faded to silence above.

The rapid click of heels approaching made Marnie duck low behind her empty tank. She caught a glimpse of a tall woman wearing glasses who checked the closures of each tank and the panels at the front. The beeps of the buttons she pressed echoed around the laboratory.

After the woman left, Marnie gathered her courage like she had Dave’s belongings when he’d disappeared. She approached the occupied tanks, quickly examining each one before moving to the next.

The smell was strong and not dissimilar to the fumes from a heavily chlorinated pool.

Up close, the man in the tank didn’t look a thing like her brother Dave, who she’d been hoping to find. His forehead was high and protruded slightly. His face was thin looking, yet luminescent. His shoulders appeared strong with pronounced but lax muscles. There was nothing handsome about the man but there was a wildness in him that Marnie found mesmerising. She felt self-conscious when her eyes slid over his flat stomach to the V of his groin and she dropped her gaze to stare at the VH+ label on his tank instead.

“Yes, it is my blood in your veins.”

She stepped back, almost stumbling over her heels as thought-lines geometrically connected the obscure dots.

“Do not be afraid. I am sedated and kept starved.”

Marnie stared. There was no indication that the man was conscious. His eyes were closed. His hands and head bobbed as if he were sleeping underwater.

“Who are you?” Marnie thought as she approached the tank again.

“I am used by your kind to heal the dying ones.”

She looked at the thick tube that pierced his side and felt a heaviness land in her gut.

“Does it hurt? “

As if in answer, the man’s ribcage staggered when he breathed the liquid in and out.

“Free me and I will show you where your brother is. “

Marnie’s heart thudded hard. She placed a hand on the glass. Where is he?

The man instructed Marnie in how to shut down the lines and drain the tank. The liquid went down fast, and the man opened his eyes. His enlarged pupils were ringed in a startling cold blue. Moisture hissed from his torso. He snapped the chains as he pulled his arms and legs off the bars. Grounded, it was as if he had grown. Without the liquid, and his body no longer suspended, he was a large figure of marble-like strength.

Marnie stepped back.

With a fingernail, the man scored a large X on the thick glass in front of his body and the tank shattered.

An alarm echoed around the laboratory and red lights flashed above the tanks.

Marnie staggered further backwards. She fell on her rear and shuffled in reverse on her hands and feet toward the exit like someone possessed.

The man stepped down from his platform and approached her

Marnie stopped moving.

‘Find me in Absalom, where the crows circle overhead, and you can claim my promise.’

As he loomed over her, Marnie thought he might suck her very soul from her body, but instead he cupped her chin, examined her face, and breathed a fine, cold mist into her open mouth.

Marnie opened her eyes and hinged upright, sucking in a deep lungful of air.

‘Welcome back.’ Clara was turning the pump off with a small grin on her face.

Marnie looked at the puckered bag hanging from the IV pole and tried to reorient herself.

An alarm was going off somewhere in the distance.

‘Did someone get out?’ she asked, careful to keep her voice low in pitch.

Clara looked at her with lines between her brows.

‘You were in ICU for a little while but you’re back on the ward now.’

Marnie slumped against the pillow. The lights overhead needled her temples, so she looked toward the ward entrance instead.

Her mother rushed in with watery eyes and pulled Marnie’s body to her chest.

‘You look so pale,’ her mother said as she leaned back to study Marnie’s face.

‘It’s a common reaction to the transfusion,’ Clara said. ‘They sometimes return from frightening dreams.’

‘No, it wasn’t a dream. I was– ’

Clara cut her off. ‘It felt real, I know.’ She squeezed the girl’s shoulder. ‘Or so I’m told.’

Clara fetched Marnie a sandwich but within minutes of her stuffing it down, she threw it all back up again.

After checking Marnie over, Dr Rashern prescribed her another bag of blood, which Clara hooked up in a blur of efficiency.

‘She can’t have A positive,’ Marnie’s mother said.

‘She can have all types now she’s had transfusion therapy,’ the doctor said, watching Marnie. She had her eyes closed and a peaceful smile on her face. Blood, blood, blood went every pulse point in her body as she let out a low ‘Mmm’.

‘The outcome wasn’t exactly what we’d hoped for, but she’s going to be fine.’ Dr Rashern rubbed the back of his neck, avoiding eye contact as he stood beside the bed.

Marnie’s eyes snapped open. ‘Am I still sick?’ If she was, she had no chance of finding Dave.

‘The MRI showed nothing. You won’t have any kind of illness for the rest of your life. Aftercare will just be… well, a little more complicated… and ongoing.’ He looked at Marnie, wearing an automatic smile that only just camouflaged a shade of pity.

The girl wasn’t paying attention. She was bending her knees up and down, checking that her formerly lame leg was doing what she wanted it to.

Leaving her walking stick behind, Marnie was discharged as outpatient F11 of Global Medical under certain conditions. She was required to return weekly for a psychological evaluation, and she would be nourished intravenously at home via her central line. She left the ward with a smiling mother and a week’s supply of blood, which, according to Marnie’s rough calculations, wasn’t anywhere near close to her estimated requirement.

As her mother drove her home over the bumpy, broken bitumen, Marnie wondered how the clan would treat her when she got back to their shelter. Would they be happy to see her well? Or secretly jealous? Or annoyed that she’d been healed while they still lived with a whole gamut of physical problems? Perhaps she could help them, now that she was well enough to do something, to do anything at all. Cured happened to be a strange concept.

Marnie traced over the veins in her wrist with long nails that had hardened like razor blades.

The microchip was healed over but she could feel it inside her muscle like a shard of glass. She considered how it would keep the post-transfusion unit updated with her health statistics, and wondered if there was more to it. She pushed the edge of a nail into her muscle, alongside the steel rod. As she wiped away the burst of blood, she saw that the skin was again perfect. She would need to be patient and think through all the details before she did anything long-lasting.

Her mother flicked the car radio on as they drove past the city border. A newsreader told them that an escaped prisoner was at large, not to approach him, and to report any sightings to the police.

Marnie unclipped her seatbelt and leant forward, craning her neck to look through the car windscreen. Nothing disturbed the cold-blue eye of the sky, but she was counting on seeing signs of life soon. PHOTO: Healthway

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