the whales

There’s a whale off Hill 60. Buoyed by rope, net tangled she tailslaps her misfortune.

Inside there’s a man, down in her guts, foot in the loops and folds. He’s praying. But who can hear him down there?

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A sudden gust of wind

It was our first lunch out, our first restaurant meal after isolation — and it seemed so rushed. The waiter hurried to seat us, pushing the menus in into our slow clumsy hands, the traffic hurtled by, the arms of the municipal clock spun in their course.

Then came the wine and the bread and we had at it, as if we had never tasted anything as wonderful — this ordinary crust, this cheap carafe.

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Daphne

after Heather Christie

‘This place is a forest now,’ the woman said. Concrete blocks were being cracked apart by glorious mountain ash and yellow box. Our roads had become torrents cutting swathes through schoolyards and housing estates. There were jungle effects in the malls and wildness in the libraries.

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A house afire

‘It started the day we moved in,’ the woman says.

‘We wake at 3 or 4 in the morning to explosions and banging,’ the man says. ‘The bedroom is thick with smoke and flames are curling up the doorframe.’

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