He crept along the banister holding on as best his little furry legs could grip the curved wood. Paint chips made the grip harder but the knife, firmly between his clenched jaws, glistened with spittle and sweat. The light was dim with only the moon coyly peeking out occasionally. It was enough to glisten off the blade that shone with a dull hue. He hissed and gulped back even more of his spit as he snaked around the banister pole flaking green shards of paint. No one wa

‘She gouged out his eye with a butter knife?’   ‘A plastic one.’   Jeannie sipped on her tea. ‘Were there no metal ones to hand?’ She replaced her cup in her saucer with a small chink.   ‘Perhaps she enjoyed the challenge.’   ‘Hm. Care for a white chocolate almond? They’re very good.’   ‘Oh, thank you, yes…So did you finish the backyard renovations? I heard you were doing some mosaics.’   ‘Yes, they’re done. All concreted over. Couldn’t leave that sort of stuff lying arou

Table grapes still sit. The light lights and warms the grapes. Grapes still green in bowl.

There is no choice.  No way off this planet, no charts to guide him back to safe environments.  The escape-pod is his survivor, friend, companion, parent and protector.  ‘Mother’ protects him, feeds him, fosters him, teaches him, finds and collects water from the water-table.  It doesn’t rain.  Dew rises to the surface when one of the moons pass and draws it from the groundwater aquifers.  It’s exciting to watch thousands of batbirds swooping or thundering grumblebums chasing

She sat on the table watching her mother cook. Her five-year-old legs dangling and swinging as she watched.   ‘I want to sit on the bench.’   ‘You can’t.’   ‘But I want to. I can’t see what you’re doing.’   ‘Well you can’t and that’s not a good reason to put your dirty little bottom on the bench.’   ‘Why not?’   ‘Because I said so.’   ‘Well, that’s not a good reason.’   Outsmarted by her five-year-old daughter the mother continued cooking with the ferocity of someone outsmart

Grapes are in a bowl. I see them still green sitting. Should I eat a grape?

……and he pulled up into his parabolic arch after the booms, allowing him to create a controlled drop to the purple grass, just beside the spook reeds.  Making sure his mask was tight, he stepped onto their grounds making the reed roots spark wildly and trigger the pampas-type heads to explode into translucent spectres of green spook-shaped vapour.   He laughed, knowing the deadly fumes cannot hurt him as they did the red and black Pandabeast he witnessed choking to death when

I have a child with a motor impairment who struggles to open a door and close it again quickly after exiting.  I have a beagle who is an expert escape artist who will bolt through any door that is open for more than a few seconds, just to see why you’re going through.  He doesn’t always know what he wants to do on the other side, but it rarely involves coming straight back in.    Today, the dog has made it out through the garage to find a bush turkey wandering across the driv

The Brigantine lurched to starboard, sails filled and beams creaked their pain, snapping hard against the rigging, straining the beams as the sailors danced around the flailing ropes, trying to slow the snapping. Backs, hard against the winds. Torrents of water smashing into the hull and spitting over the railing and onto the deck that is awash with men, ropes, sweat, blood and pain. The captain pulled his tricorn deeper onto his skull as the wheel nearly spun out of his g

Through a particularly brilliant piece of thinking she brought in the idea of outsourcing the reproduction of flora. What she didn’t need was for trees and plants to move about. She had considered it, but it would unfortunately disrupt some of her other terrific designs, particularly mycelium and other creepy crawlies that lived under the plants…and cicadas (for which she had not yet come up with a purpose and probably never would).   She’d create something called wind. It wo

October 2025 There is a post Middle of a field A cow, Tied by neck As it wanders Rope coils round And range it wanders Shorten I can’t tell if being with you has me gnawing the same grass Or if the rope is air and It’s my imagination tied to the post How horrifying it is the thought that I could be boundlessly tripping through skies dark light crimson blue eating the stars but that I don’t for the thirst this post slakes I suppose the milk of my only-human kindness would spil

She walked around the block again. Then, she stopped. Will I? Won’t I? She checked her watch 3 2 1 And sprinted, her feet barely touching the ground. Some steps, she was pushing so fast that she nearly lost her balance. She fell on the ground. Her lungs were on fire. Her breaths couldn’t come fast enough. She sucked the air in. Cough Cough Too fast. The ache in her thighs was unfamiliar. Painful. Sweet. As her breathing slowed, there it was. The silence. She stood up. Here ey

Lord, I wish I was a little bit younger and knew what I know now.   Now – you may ask, what has that to do with today’s word, which is ‘unleashed’?   Hmmm I’m not sure, but it is quite truthful. I’m the oldest here, so I am unleashing, allowing myself liberties. But, no, I don’t wish I was a ‘little’ bit younger, and I reckon I know less now than before.

The dog unleashed narrowly avoided being run over …. dead as a doornail … by the truck which was, as coincidence would have it, from the local dog pound. The driver was later quoted as saying: “I used to be a much better driver in my younger days…that dog was lucky.” Then he winked, smiled, and nodded his head, making it clear what his actual intentions were.   Anyway…that’s enough about that. Generally, I believe, being ‘unleashed’ is a really good thing to be: especially wh

Your truth is yet to be unleashed a mind, surrounded by stars, has a great way of tricking you, a people, Struggle on, pawing away at the shore, this lonely blue planet may go on without you.   There once was a story of a little girl, who collected moments by the shore, not all, but moments that glittered in the sunlight, the beach was just below the city. She found shrugs, sad faces, and old photographs. One day she found an old photograph of a woman who looked familiar, but

The heavy-duty tarpaulin I kept from a Jeep at a wreckers has turned into one of my most prized possessions. Heavy to carry on my nightly climb up into the mountains, but worth it. Bramble thickets are the best places to hide out in. I have several and use them in turn, so my movements won’t become too predictable. The tarpaulin makes things much more comfortable.   They said I was mad, coming up here, a tiny thing like me. What am I going to do? How do I expect to protect my

Standing at the 2-kilometre-high precipice he looks down at purple valleys.  Orange-blue clouds scatter below.  This tiny boy, sole survivor of the escape pod, stares at the two suns beaming like white and yellow balls near the horizon. Being a ‘space-baby’, this is the only world he will feel.  Other worlds are only video. He steps off the cliff and dives in a crux pose.  Holding the pose till air pins his arms along his torso.  Goggles dig into his face, mouth tight, eyes b

The sky was heavy and black, but it wasn’t night time. Everyone looked up at the ominous black clouds. BOOM, Crackle, SMASH! The lightning erupted over the houses. Mother Nature looked on and said to herself, “There’s a nice bit of entertainment for you mere immortals. Instead of watching your screens, look outside at the wonders I can create. You think you’re so clever with your mechanical and electrical inventions but they are nothing. You will never surpass me.” The mortal

Racing across the expansive skies, was it sound or light that reached us first? The 'jagged white' hit our old red river gum right at the hollow where the elders had taken a coolamon from the younger tree's yielding bark. We used that tray on our wedding for berries and so, too, have all our offspring on their weddings, one by one.  So frequently has it been oiled and cleaned and cherished that our care has imparted a soft, shiny tinge to its redness.   Now the old tree is sh

A voice exits sleep: "I had a bunch of flowers" I dreamed something else.