Melbourne
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Sometimes I wish there were a bed at the library. In a corner, out of the way. Or not a bed exactly, but something bedlike. A pile of cushions would do. A place set up for a drowse. For half an hour. Or twenty minutes should be enough. The length of a tea break. Time…
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The heat came early in the morning from nowhere, and by the afternoon it was pressing down on all sides. The first day of summer, I called it. Roddy said it was just a phantom. We closed the curtains and sat around without clothes. My back was slick with sweat, and the backs of my…
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‘In here,’ he said, grabbing my hand, and leading me up a dark flight of stairs, then another, and another, until we’d climbed so high I could feel the building sway. He unlocked a big metal door and pulled me into the room and said, ‘This is Ernie.’ It was an ugly thing, squat and…
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Everything was just as it had been the last time he’d come, except he couldn’t see her sculpture. He looked around as if it might have been blown down the road. He stopped a woman near to the Arts Centre, and said, ‘What happened to Forward Surge?’ She arched an eyebrow, and her eyes followed…
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Although he hadn’t been asleep, Michael felt rested and much calmer. The room was still and peaceful, and lit by a bleed of sunlight around the edges of the curtains. He was lying on his front, and he turned his head and looked across the bed, into the mirror in the wardrobe door. Just behind…
Barry Lee Thompson 