The Beautiful Thing You Once Were

The Beautiful Thing You Once Were

Perhaps I should have been surprised when the magpie first spoke. Strange as it may seem, I had become quite used to the mimicries of those curious backyard birds, with their pristine black-and-white feathers, their inquisitive orange-red eyes. Their infamy as deadly swoopers, as springtime terrors of the skies, is legend here in Australia. But I’d never myself been swooped, always associated them rather with their mellifluous warblings, their impersonations. Maybe you remember, too, back when we first moved here as Ten Pound Poms, over half a century ago now, that time a magpie perfectly imitated the mew of our first cat: the irascible ginger, Mr Bentley. Now that was a surprise. Hearing his unmistakable complaints and turning to see not a raggedy ball of orange fur padding toward us across the garden, but an impostor, now hopping, now strutting, peering at us from first one eye, then the other. That muggy afternoon, so many summers ago, the magpie held its beak high and let forth another meow, both throatier and more pure than Mr Bentley’s, but in all other details precisely correct. Since then, I’ve heard magpies imitate all kinds of odd sounds: a neighborhood dog; the onomatopoeic calls of currawongs; and once, the rising and falling groans of a leaf-blower. I was so used to their strange calls, I would hardly have paid this one any mind, if it hadn’t spoken with your voice. And addressed me by name—the name no one had ever called me but you… 

Read the full story for free in Issue 33 of Bourbon Penn.

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The Black Massive

The Black Massive

It was a banging scene, back in the day. Before Cadman came out of the shadows, touting his weird black shit.

Back then it was all colour and sound. Everyone off their bone, grinning like nutters, sweating and gurning and losing it to the lights and the tunes. Lasers slicing the dark. Bass beats kicking up from the floor. Fractal lead lines like living things, like creatures of light that danced the sound, that danced the rush that was all of us. It was like another world. A magic kingdom.

Fucking La La Land.

I’d tell Mum I was staying round Dog’s, then we’d catch the bus out to Tescos carpark. The warehouse was always this big secret—the flyer in my pocket didn’t say nothing more than a time and a place for all the ravers to meet. No one knew where they was going ’til the lead car pulled in and everyone drove in convoy to the night.

Me and Dog was too young to drive, so we had to be there in time to cadge a lift. We’d go early and slip into the bog before the supermarket closed. Sometimes we’d roll one. Other nights we’d sniff whizz off the bog seat, come out sipping Strawberry Ribena, breaking the seal on a brand new pack of Benson & Hedges. Then we’d strut out between the cars, looking for mates or a friendly face, grinning and bobbing, blowing smoke rings into the cold, still night…

 

Read the full story for free in Issue 21 of Dimension6.

The Moth Tapes

The Moth Tapes

So here we are, little one. Our new home sweet home.

Not that I’ve fixed up your bedroom yet, but there’s still time. And it’ll be lovely, Noodle, I promise. We’ll go down to the shop tomorrow and look at colours. I’ll paint you a mural, get one of those things that dangles over your bed. When you look out your window, you’ll see the garden and the trees and the mountain behind. When you’re big you can walk out the back gate and spend all day up there, among the shinglebacks and roos and galahs. I’ll blow a whistle when dinner’s ready and you’ll come running back.

I found something out there today, out near the back gate where the veggie patch will go. It was poking out of the dirt and at first I thought it was a loose cable or something. When I looked closer though it wasn’t anything like that.

It took a bit of wiggling to get out of the ground, but I’m glad I made the effort because it’s just so unusual. I’ll put it somewhere safe for when you’re older; you can keep it in a box with all your other treasures. A sort of hollow leather cigar, all plump and shiny and rippled, the end’s torn like something burst out from inside, and I guess that’s exactly what happened. Perhaps it’s some kind of cocoon. But of what, though?
I have no idea…

The Moth Tapes was shortlisted for an Aurealis Award for Best Horror Short Story in 2019.

Read more in Aurealis Magazine issue 117.

Or listen to the full story on the Tales To Terrify podcast, read by Josie Babin:

Our Last Meal

Our Last Meal

It used to be our favourite lookout. Our hangover lookout, Sallie called it.

We always got trashed the night we arrived and, the next day, would roll out of the cabin before dawn, woken by kookaburras and the first crystal shards of hangover. We’d slog our way through the rainforest, sweating poison, Sallie forever in the lead, boasting how she’d walked this track since she was a toddler and couldn’t I keep up. At the top, we’d stretch out on the coarse rock and share the same, unchanging picnic: crackers, cheese and cucumber sliced with a knock-off Swiss Army penknife, all rinsed back with the warm dregs of last night’s bottle of white. And there we would lose ourselves, gazing out across the canopy and the hazy blue exhalations that rose above it, into the deeper blue of the sky.

It could never be the same without her; I knew that. But something had drawn me back here, to spread out that same simple lunch and stare blankly at those same treetops…

Read more in the AHWA anthology, In Sunshine Bright and Darkness Deep.

Or listen to the full story on the Tales To Terrify podcast, read by Dan Rabarts:

Duplicity

Duplicity

Tad was lying. Again.

Not that anything gave him away. His grey eyes did not waver. His lips did not twitch, only pushed forward into the half-pout he’d studied, rehearsed, perfected over hours before the mirror. He could dissemble with all the finesse of a double agent.

“I would’ve called, Bae, but you know how it is. Derek kept me and the others back, talking motivation. Actor stuff.”

He curled butter onto a knife, scraped it to every corner of his sourdough toast. It was like an act of worship, the way he smoothed the expensive marmalade with such precision. It nauseated me.

Tad could have been a “ten”. He had pale, smooth skin over high, sharp cheekbones, raffish dark hair, painstakingly unkempt, and a physique at once delicate and masculine. Even dressed down, in khaki slacks and a cream polo shirt, he was impeccable, with creases taut and collars erect. He could have been perfect, but was held back by an air of smug self-satisfaction that kept each practised smile from ever touching his eyes…

Duplicity was shortlisted for an Aurealis Award for Best Fantasy Short Story in 2017.

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