ENDINGS. THIS IS THE END. WE LOVE AND MISS YOU ALREADY.

22/11/17

This story ends with a girl whose hair is too long for her liking. Seven new songs, unwashed swimmers, and a pair of luggage tags for the flight home tomorrow. She has a lump in her throat that’s been there for two months. Everything’s tasted bitter since September.

She forgets the way Melbourne turns cold, tries to grow without her sisters’ help. Nineteen has been a difficult age. This year has been a difficult year. She should wash those swimmers.

In a souvenir-shop snow globe, in which she sees herself dancing amongst the debris, she is almost happy.

BY AMANDA TAN

You’re a ghost
A heart forgotten
A nightmare in a dreamless night
A whisper in a deaf ear
A scratch on my skin
A dig in my flesh
A pain that I relive
Each time I think of you

BY PRACHI TYAGI

HALF LIFE

I dream decay
of the pot plant by the window.

Asymmetrical sleeps, sweating by degrees.
Multi-resistant, translucent leaves.

Green again by morning.

BY LUKE MACARONAS

ENDINGS

Zorp clicked the giant red button on his remote reading “MASS DESTRUCTION”. From his spaceship he watched Earth blow up. A few couches floated off into space, a confused dog on one of them. Finally! Zorp had the best real estate property in all of the galaxy. He would make a new planet, a pink planet with much better couches and dogs. And dogs on couches. And perhaps, if he deemed suitable, couches on dogs. An angry man with a briefcase floated by, waving his fist in fury. Zorp thought, Humans are so fickle. Their bagels aren’t buttered and they scream at the waiter. But, earth detonates and they still manage to hold onto their briefcases.

BY MEG WORRELL

I clutch my navel showing my pale coloured skin. In a crowd amongst my friends, people looked for winners with their hands. Many passed me, hesitant to choose me. Preferring others, who were firmer and smoother; out casting me who was weaker hence lower. Some say I was too thick- skinned, others say I was not full coloured enough. Although in the same basket from the same mother, the colour of my skin was judged as if I was from another. Because of my looks, assumptions were made and I was forsaken to a world of pain.

BY LI SHAN

BITTER END

Bam! Bam!
Really? Impending doom isn’t enough to stall girl scouts?
Nick? You in there? Open up!
Never mind. I’ll take the scouts.
Come on man, let me in!
Not gonna happen, Trevor.
It’s hot as balls out here!
Can’t imagine why. Not like there’s a scorching asteroid
approaching…
Nick, I ain’t playing around! Yours is the only bunker for miles.
Let me in or I swear I’ll—
What’s that? I can’t hear you over the sound of the world
ending!
Nick? Just—oh god! It’s coming—aaaaah!
Let’s see you steal my H2B again, prick.
Boom!

BY THARIDI WALIMUNIGE 

ADJUSTMENT

construction
auto-destruct
l’edifice
won’t stay up
si tu peut pas
le réparer
run on empty
accelerate

construction
auto-destruct
insomnie
et sans espoir
when you wake up
accelerate
run on empty
detonate

BY CAROLYN HUANE 

WHERE WAS I AND WHO WERE YOU (REALLY)?

There are gaps in my night that you make me have to fill.
There are holes in my story that you force me to recall.
It’s a week later,
And I’m writhing in these empty spaces.

BY JEMMA GRAY