nilocnag

Emma Thorn was always a big girl, and no one but the clinically blind could deny this. She was popularly regarded as the girl no one could cheat on, as once you were her boyfriend, you virtually had no eyes for anyone else as she had a notable characteristic of completely occupying anyone’s field of view with every square inch of her body. Newspapers churned out reports of childhood obesity epidemic ad nauseam, and pictures were constantly taken of her in various stages of trying to shed the less useful parts of herself. Emma on a treadmill, Emma eating a salad, Emma walking to school instead of taking the bus, Emma always with a sad fa

The first thing that one usually does when his or her aunt is found dead is to celebrate. Of course, this process varies across cultures, but the general rule is to throw your hands up and yell "Hooray!" upon receiving the news, or discovering it. So when little Tommy came home from soccer practice to find his aunt dead on the lazy chair in the living room, he did throw his hands up and yell "Hooray!" (Children are very well read nowadays and know all about these traditions.) He didn't yell too loud, though, as he wasn't totally sure she had expired. Tommy took as evidence her stillness, her glazed-over eyes and a little drool which had come

Same and Similar are not the same ...but very similar. Everyone at school gets them mixed up... because everybody is so different. Their eyes are different, someone said.... And Same is taller than his brother. Similar can wiggle his ears (half the class can). But still no one could get their names right. They painted their faces, And Mrs. Tumble got mad. Same came in stilts, And he fell down the stairs. Similar wore a wig, Which a bird stole off him. Mum grumbled when they came home in a mess. "If you want to look different, you shouldn't wear the same clothes!" she said. Then they realized. Now everyone at school can tell t

broken beer bottles caltrops for early joggers hidden in the grass.

He did not want to live life in the fast lane. He did not want to languish in the slow lane, either. He was not one to compromise and settle with the middle lane. No, Richard decided to pull over altogether and have a nice long nervous breakdown. I am going to have one, he said, when he woke up one day. He dreamt he was part of a cycad salad slowly devoured by a pink triceratops. He didn't end up having one eventually, because he had to mow the lawn and mowing the lawn put his mind off such thoughts. Plants were more pleasant things, Richard thought, they don't scream when their limbs are cut off. The next day he was more sure he was going

Richard Ng spiked her love letter along with the household bills. Water, electricity, gas, then Susannah Prior. He had braved to read the old cow's maudlin prose once, only to be repelled by four letter words and hot, sticky affection rising from the paper along with the fetid perfume she wore. She had passed into neighbourhood lore as the horniest witch of the suburbs, whose art of seduction could wilt libidos and draw shudders from the entire male population. The Prior woman kept a high fence around her house, which received an above average sum of eggs during Halloween and contributed to the low price of real estate on the same street. So

Shaun drew a face in the shifting dust, admired it for a moment, then scuffed it out with his feet as he got up. Mark said he'd be there, three o'clock at the most. He sighed. The caravan still had some water left, might as well finish it. He walked against the breeze, jeans stained with red dirt, feet making a scrabbling noise as he opened the caravan door and leant his weight on the ground while he bent over the seat and retrieved the esky. It still stank of old crab and salted ice from Hendrick's little trip up north. The water tasted a bit bitter from the ice, but what the hell. Two more hours in midsummer heat. On the highway no one bot

A girl named Susanna once lived in a village in front of an old well. The village had long ago paid the water company to pipe water to their houses, and ever since the well had remained out of use. The villagers made up rumours to attract tourists that the well was a wishing well; flocks of them visited the village to lean over its side and drop a coin in there, hoping their cancer would be cured or their numbers would show up in the lottery. That was many years back, though; Susanna was ready to believe what her grandparents heard from their grandparents, and so on and so forth until the legend seemed to be regarded as true only because so m

The bandages loosen up and the flax reeds stir in the breeze. My half has split and gone off running, one leg only, through the forest of tall heads and golden fruit tasseled into the heads of the plants. Some grey man stomps and grunts in the shed off my vision: kerdhump dhump dhump darn and pause, kerdhump boomp and the hands continue to work the grains into the boxes. I am still here, this speaking quarter dissolving into a pure lump of vocal pleasure. My other half is tumbling in the weeds near the house where the gate slams shut and creaks open like the sound of a mouth making the cry of red Indian warfare. The grey man threshes the gra