Grades 5 to 6
Pippy
(A True Story)
By Jade Dickinson
Kingston Primary School
“In here.” Mum took a box from the car, and I peered curiously in.
A bundle of feathers was huddled timidly into the side.
Hesitant, I reached in trailed my hand down its head. The duck’s feathers were soft, coloured brown and white, and it shivered slightly at my touch.
It had stripes on its face and two white blots on either side of its back. Its feet felt like pebbles, the webs shining golden in the sunlight.
The beauty and life that surrounded it reminded me of Tasmania, and how lucky I was to live amongst all this richness.
“I found it on the farm, all alone.” Mum explained. She reached in and picked up the tiny creature. It looked fragile and alone in her hands as she passed the duckling to me.
I sat down carefully and stroked its head with my fingers. The duckling buried its head in my coat and stilled, only the rising and falling of its breath visible. It seemed I had a new best friend.
I decided that the duckling was a male, for he was really feisty, and named him Pippy, because that was the sound he made. We gave it its own cage placed in the laundry, and even a little kookaburra toy to sleep with, although that got pooped on. We used a mirror for more company, and a heat lamp for warmth.
Pippy was a wood duck, which meant he was native to Tasmania, and we would have to release him. I tried to keep him ‘up to shape’ and would regularly use tweezers to take out her bird lice. Weirdly, I enjoyed it Pippy would usually fall asleep whenever I did.
I have two chickens, and it was hilarious to watch the duckling peck them whenever they peered at him.
The first time he flew was when he was running down our driveway. We got him an outside cage, but I would always supervise him whenever he tried flying, just in case he flew over the fence.
Judging from her feathers, it turns out Pippy was a girl! Now that she was older, Mum decided we should bring her back to the farm where she was found.
It was a good idea, but I was away the day my parents released her and didn’t get to say goodbye.
It was a week later that we decided to go see if Pippy was still there at the dam.
The water looked empty, alone, the trees mirrored on its silvery surface.
“Pippy!” I called, my hopes dying. A flicker caught my attention, and a bird cautiously made her way towards us, peeping as she went. It was Pippy!
She climbed onto the bank and nuzzled her head into the bottom of my sleeve like she always used to.
I smiled, but as I said goodbye, I knew she was free, and I had given her a chance to have the life she wanted. After all, she was a wild bird.
Grades 7 to 9
The Sleeping Forest
By Erin Grubert
Scotch Oakburn College
The day is young. It is dark. It is still. All is quiet. I walk along the path, losing sight of my feet in the fog looming centimetres above the ground. One foot in front of the other, again and again. The repetition is metronomic. My torch’s beam scans my surroundings. If I trip over, I think, at least only the trees and the rocks will see me. And the birds, with their beady little eyes. A single bird chirps as if to protest, which makes me laugh. Everything else is asleep. At least I think that is all that can see me. This thought makes my mind wander. As I walk, I observe. I have passed five pademelons, two possums and an owl with eyes that both calm and, somewhat paradoxically, unnerve you simultaneously. It seems not everything is asleep. I’m about to go through my list again but stop dead in my tracks. My jaw drops, letting hungry mosquitoes fly into my mouth. I’m so stunned, I don’t care about that part.
Three toadstools with small white stalks for arms and legs waddle across the track, as if toddlers learning to walk. I’m speechless, not that I have anyone with me to talk to anyway. One kicks a pile of leaves, shooting them into the air and letting them float back down to the foggy ground. One of them sneezes a baby’s sneeze. Achoo! They all start to giggle. I keep walking, careful not to disturb them. I take one last glance, but they’re gone. Did I really just see that? Maybe I did. But I keep walking anyway, one foot in front of the other.
I must be halfway up now, at least. I finally managed to get rid of the taste of mosquito out of my mouth, from earlier. The air is getting colder, which I find odd since its nearly dawn. The sky is gradually brightening, but not enough to see clearly without the use of my headtorch. I let out a small cry, that breaks the eerie silence of the sleeping forest.
“Ouch!” I call out.
A small pebble, barely visible over the fog, ricochets off my foot and rolls further down the track. I blink, and blink again, and once more to be certain that my eyes aren’t deceiving me. A larger stone makes its way down the hill, chasing after the pebble, but more slowly.
“Clay! It’s too early in the morning for this, Clay!” came a voice. Then, that same voice is directed towards me.
“I’m so sorry ma’am, my son really means no harm, he’s a young’un, only 5,000 years old,” the woman’s voice says. The mother of a small rock is currently talking to me, I tell myself, hoping it will make the situation sound less crazy... It doesn’t.
I smile and respond, “No problem at all ma’am, you and your son have a good day!”
Part of me says that I’m making all of this up, the other part of me says to be polite just in
case it’s not all in my head.
“You too,” came the reply.
And with that she’s off down the track again, pursuing her son. The cold pinches at my skin. I’ll warm up if I keep walking. So, I’m off again, one foot in front of the other.
It's been thirty minutes since I passed the rock family, over an hour since passing the toadstools. I place my headtorch in my pocket, there is no need for it now that the pre- dawn light has begun. The sun still hasn’t risen. If I’m lucky I’ll reach the summit before sunrise. Nearly there. One foot in front of the other, again and again. That’s when my eyes are drawn to the movement at my feet.
Fairies.
Fairies. Tiptoeing across the forest floor.
The shortest one, whose head can barely be seen over the carpet of fog yells, “Guys! Wait up!”
The others turn to shuusshhh her.
The tallest one whispers harshly, “Quiet! You’ll wake him and HE doesn’t like being woken”.
The shortest, straggling fairy catches up and off they go. Tiptoeing once again. The tallest fairy’s words swim in my mind, You’ll wake him and HE doesn’t like being woken.
‘Who is he?’ I whisper to myself.
Nevertheless, I continue up the mountain path, one foot in front of the other.
I made it. I finally made it! A sense of accomplishment rushes over me. I’m at the top of Mount Arthur! What a beautiful sight it is from here, looking out to where the forest meets the sky. All is quiet. Just then, the sun crests over the horizon, covering the summit in golden rays. Rays that haven’t yet reached the Tamar Valley below.
A sudden trembling radiates from the ground into my legs.
The mountain rumbles, breaking the morning silence. Is this an earthquake?! Then the mountain yawns and speaks, “Good morning, Forest,” in a raspy voice, belonging to an old man.
“Good morning, Arthur,” comes a chorus of voices from beneath the canopy.
And just like that, the forest is awake. Bird calls fill the air, trees stretch their creaky limbs and creatures go about their daily routines. That’s when I know. This is real. I did not imagine this. It’s all very real. I bend down and rest my hand on the ground, “Thank you Arthur, I whisper”.
I can feel him smile a wise man’s smile. Then I leave.
“Life is good,” I acknowledge.
I need nothing more from this place. It has given me more than enough.
Grades 10 to 12
The Midden
By Ena Nichols
Don College
Jack’s steps were clumsy, slipping on every wet rock and root possible, but Darcy moved as if he had studied the grooved track his whole life. On walks like this, Darcy would tell childhood anecdotes. His memory was impressive. Every branch reminded him of how trees spoke to one another and every bush, the story of why Tassie devils sound the way they do, which his uncle would tell. Jack hung onto every one of his words. Darcy began to speak of his time out on country with his folks.
“Did you ever—?”
“No.” Jack replied sharply, the mix of jealousy and yearning clear in his voice. His throat tightened and stomach clenched; if he spoke another word, he wouldn’t have been able to hold back tears. Darcy paused for a second, the only silence for that whole walk, but it didn’t last long.
“No worries, I’ll have to take you,” he responded with his usual enthusiasm.
“Alright.” Jack could have cracked a massive smile, but he didn’t want Darcy to see his desperation.
The walk continued with Darcy’s stories, Jack found it hard to tell if Darcy was oblivious to his ‘outburst’ or if he was intentionally not addressing it. He was glad that Darcy continued.
It began to spit. Light drops made the leaves tremble. They began to make their way back to the car park, but despite his best efforts, Jack still tripped on every branch, slipped on every rock and almost collided with a fleeing wallaby.
. . .
The sun was like an alarm; Jack’s eyelids glowed orange as if at boiling point; this morning starkly contrasted last week’s damp weather. He began his usual commute to university, deciding to take advantage of the good weather and walk along the patchwork path by the road. The uni came into sight; on the rooftop, a refuge of shrubs and grasses praising the sun. His phone vibrated; it was Darcy. He asked Jack to go up to Woolnorth with him to check out the coast; of course he would go.
The road was secluded and long, but Darcy kept the conversation going the whole way. They were going to visit the middens along the back of Woolnorth. Darcy had been there many times, but for Jack, this was completely new. Once they got to Bluff Point, they met with Darcy’s uncle who worked at the place. He warned the two to be careful; the property was privately owned, and he was not meant to let them wander alone. He made them promise to stay on track, leaving them to go back to work. Darcy began to lead the way to an overgrown track in the bush surrounding the wind farm, this was the closest Jack had come to turbines; a strange horror and excitement fell on him as they passed the towering, white pillars. The surrounding land was fields of green and yellowed grass, littered with patches of dense bush and trees.
The coast was walled by the same dense bush that was further inland, and past the wall was a thin strip of sand against the water. The midden was massive. Shells littered the ground. The abalone shells were bigger than anywhere else; Jack was careful not to tread on any. The area felt strangely comforting, familiar. It was his history, despite only hearing it through Darcy’s stories.
“You know, the women used to get the shellfish. All this woulda been their work,” Darcy said, making a grand gesture toward the midden, “bones here too.” He tiptoed over the bits of shell and bone and picked up a massive abalone shell that was the size of his hand. He swiftly made his way back to Jack and handed him the beauty.
“You found this?” Jack asked as he cradled the shell in his hands.
“Yeah, just over there.” Darcy replied triumphantly, his arm stretched out.
“Could I keep it?”
Darcy hesitated at the thought, noticeably avoiding eye contact for a few seconds. Darcy rubbed at his neck and looked back to Jack.
“Aw yeah, guess so. Should be right, I reckon.” He replied with uncertainty woven between each word. They gathered a few more shells that were intact, but none the size of the first one.
Once Jack got back to his house in the late afternoon, he fetched some old string and driftwood from his small shed. He decided to make a wind chime with the shells collected from the midden earlier, something to hang outside his bedroom window. He finished the piece after a couple hours of delicate work and went to bed early.
That night, the wind was harsh. His windows rattled in place, and the wind chime clacked violently. Clack clack clack, like the sound of bones, lasting the whole night. The next night was the same, clack clack clack, continuously echoing through the night despite the wind being completely still.
For the following week, the clacking was constant, wind or not, the sound of colliding bone rang in Jack’s ears all day and night. That evening, the shells were still, their clacks dulled. His stomach sank. The biggest abalone shell was broken. A bit of the thin rim had broken off and fallen to the ground. The horrid feeling, almost like the guilt of breaking someone else’s belongings, sat in the back of Jack’s mind for the rest of that evening. The feeling was like a weighted blanket, tiring him out and lulling him into restless sleep.
Jack’s blackwood door creaked open, followed by the silhouette of a looming figure. It was tall; an elongated body that was humanoid, long spindly limbs, and ears that drooped almost to its shoulders. Jack heard the groan of the door and woke up. It was just there, standing at the end of his bed, but he wasn’t frightened. He acknowledged it was there, he knew he had disturbed it. It was like it was curious, Jack understood what it wanted, as if it was saying ‘gonna fix this?’ He knew.
There was still that sense of dread the next morning, but it was met with relief too. Jack now understood Darcy’s hesitation when he asked for the shells; he wished he hadn’t asked at all. Jack grabbed a musty old shirt from his drawers and carefully wrapped the shells as if they were discs of the thinnest glass. He called Darcy and told him that he needed to go back to Woolnorth. So, they made their way to Bluff Point, Jack nursing the folded shirt in his lap, his hands cupping the sides as he retold the dream in vivid detail on the long drive.
“Sounds like a quinkan I think, a mischievous spirit, seen it in a book back at mum’s. Funny, they are.” Darcy concluded, his tone wasn’t dismissive, but understanding. They met the uncle at the gate again.
“Back already, boys! Trying to get me fired, are yous?” the uncle said with a comforting smile.
“Something like that.” Darcy chuckled, ‘Jack seems pretty fond of this place.’ He glanced beside him and smirked. Jack’s face started to burn. He struggled not to feel affronted, but Darcy’s words were true.
“Aw nice, the midden really is amazing, huh?” The uncle stretched out his arm and waved it in the direction of the turbines. “Right on the other side of the farm you’ll find another gate, through that is the coast, very rocky. You’ll see some hut depressions. You might take an interest in it, Jack.”
Jack smiled and firmed his grasp on the wrapped shells.
“Definitely, thank you.” Jack beamed; he could’ve gone in to hug the uncle if he was willing to put the shells down. Darcy glanced at Jack, then turned to his uncle.
“Well,” he started, slipping his hand across Jack’s shoulder, “reckon we should get to it, Uncle. Shouldn’t be too long, right Jack?” Jack nodded.
“Alright boys, I’ll see you later then.” The uncle turned to leave. “Ah right!” he exclaimed, swiftly spinning back to look at the boys, “Jack, make sure you don’t hesitate to ask anything, right? You’re keen to learn, keep at it.”
By the time they got to the beach, the sky had shifted from clear to a blanket of grey. The midden was there waiting, the uneven ground flowing beneath Jack’s feet. I’m here, he thought as he kneeled slowly, the shirt cradled delicately in the crook of his arm. He slipped the shells out and onto the mixture of fine sand, shell and bone. Above, the turbines rotated under the pressure of the maelstrom winds, and the land sat as it always had.
Open Section
Mother
By Romy Tara Wenzel
The land I belong to is red and green and yellow, and so I am red and green and yellow, because I am made of this land. I am kin to sassafras and moss, lichen and waratah. Brother to platypus and wombat, uncle to worm. I am student of rock and river, and weather prophet, because the tides rise inside me with the rain and moon, and the sun draws them out of me again. I am languaged in lichen, soil and frilled toadstool, and even speak a little of the unwild tongue of our distant relatives, the furless creatures, down the mountain.
All this my Mother taught me, and more, as her Mother taught her, and his Mother taught him. Now Mother lies stone-heavy in my arms and takes her last rattling breaths.
“Don’t leave me,” I say, my voice creaking like the trees in a storm. Her moustaches shudder as if she’ll reply, but instead she releases a deep sigh and her eyes turn grey and liquid as puddles on the moor. I lie back and let the black earth drink my tears. In the canopy, the surrounding trees draw her last breath through their leaves.
Very little goes to waste in the forest, even sighs.
I wait with her corpse until I remember there’s no one left but me to sing her to the other side. Wiping tears on the dark fur of my arm, I reach my invisible roots into the earth, anchor into the stillness, and sing. I sing for all the things my mother taught me, and her mother taught her, and his mother taught him. For the warmth of her body on a snowy night, her sad and tender face, and the love of my only blood-kin.
I sing for what is lost.
A black currawong lands on my shoulder. She claws my fur and pitches her head to the side to meet my eye with her yellow one. Kip is the fifteenth of her line to live on the moors, and her great-grandmother was born the same day I was. I’ve known her since she was an egg, and I’m glad she’s here now. It means a lot, to have a friend by your side in hard times. For now that Mother has crossed over, I must take her body to the Ending.
I walk the path there, although there’s no path you can see, and I’ve never been there before. My ancestors show me the way. Their sorrow runs through me like a river, like all the rivers of the mountain. I know where those are too, without having to look for them. My body is a map of the moors, and the map strengthens as Mother grows heavier in my arms. She is no longer Mother, I suppose. In the turn of a breath I became Mother to the Moor and Wood, kin to all things and the last of my kind.
. . .
Although the moorlands are red and yellow and green, the Ending is not. The Ending is a yawning crevasse made of purples and umbers and feral blacks. Not far from here, they blow such holes open with weapons, dig them out with machines, and harvest the meat inside. Wind and water, claw and snout carved this Ending, but all the same, sadness catches in my fur to see the land I belong to torn open, the floor littered with bones.
“The Ending,” Mother told me once, “is the place things come to die. Something deep in the land calls them, and if they can crawl or flap or wriggle the distance, they come. Perhaps I’ll crawl and wriggle there too, when my turn comes. For the only thing I know, after a hundred years of midwifing death on the moors, is that everybody, feathered, scaled or furred, attempts a journey to the Ending. You must carry any remains you find there, as a Mother, and also mourn the ones that never made it. A Mother’s primary task is Life, which means her shadow work is always Death.”
I scoot down the soft, crumbling walls on my backside with Mother on my lap and let her roll from my arms into the bed of bones. Without faces, fur and feathers, I don't recognise them all. They must have been my friends, in life. I tease pellets of decaying matter apart with my fingers, and the fur stands up on my neck as I wonder which of my friends these bones belong to, which of my relatives this fur. But the long, fat beaks of currawongs are unmistakable, and so personally mournful to me I put my knees in the compost of their bodies and weep. I can see why Mother kept me from the Ending. She was right, not to show me. Now that I’ve seen it, I can never be happy again. I’ve another hundred years or so to live, in which I’m doomed to see every one of my friends die. My mother is gone, and the cage of her body will soon be as white as these others. What is the point of death? What is the point of life, if only to end in rot and worms? I love the worms more than anyone, but I have no wish to see my friends eat my friends.
I lift my snout and howl, for the first time, and Kip launches from my shoulder, disappears into the shivering myrtles. I know now, know not just through tales but through my eyes, ears and nose that I will always be alone, in the end.
. . .
I come to understand why Mother’s face was so long at the end of each day, why she took dreaming tea to drift out of herself, and why she cried in her sleep. As I mourn and tend and honour each new body that arrives at the Ending, I think of all of those who did not make it: those without legs to carry them, the root-bound and water-beings, and those who ended up in a warm belly or at the bottom of a lake. In the background, Mother’s body swells and collapses, and, like the others, vanishes into skeleton. But nothing touches Mother’s body, not even the eagles, and her bones hold their shapes until the rain, sun and other unseen magics crumble them back to earth.
I miss the reassuring bulk of Mother’s presence once she is gone, so Kip and I weave her shape from twigs and moss over winter and I sit it up by the fire in my cave. At night the flames cast her shadow on the wall. Mother’s shape is the last thing I see before sleep, and I wake to Kip scratching at my shoulder. Those markers root me in my dawns and dusks, reassure me that I’m not completely alone.
. . .
After two seasons have passed, a little of my old ways creep back. I walk with death daily, but I walk with life, too. Kip squeezes my shoulder when I need her, and the grief settles between my ribs. I bind a pademelon’s fractured leg, console an echidna with broken spines, and treat a wombat with swollen joints. Mountain shrimps browse moss and liverwort in pools of clear water, while sedge-skippers and landhoppers flit beside me. The back of the land breathes, as the microbes beneath it exhale, and the roots take up nutrients. The wood crackles under my feet as I walk over the land and back to my cave, the worms swim their heads upwards between my toes to say hello. I lean down and let them squirm through my fingers; they’re some of the moor’s best friends, although I would never confess it aloud. All lives must be considered equal to a Mother.
So I tell myself, until the day I wake up without Kip. I sit by our twig-mother, waiting, thinking perhaps she has been delayed by an unusual meal or a fight with a crow. She does not come, and I feel the dread creep in that all families must feel, waiting in their nests or burrows, when their loved ones do not return. Kip is more than a loved one, though; she holds the whole forest together, the whole moor, by holding me together. I look for her at the Ending, but she does not appear. I spend the afternoon searching our favourite places. The river where, in springtime, she rolls on the bank, dries out in the sun and cracks from the mud like an egg. The scrub where we eat mushrooms together and she introduced me to the acquired taste of carrion. I find her in the hakea wood where she hatched, where the trees thicken and tangle and the shadows darken. Her white markings gleam ghostly in the shadows, and I wonder how long it will take her long, dark beak to turn white as the skeletons in the Ending. I stroke her scent glands, grunt in her mother’s tongue. I do not carry her to the Ending, not yet, but sing over the body in her birthplace, scatter pinkberries around her head. Kip! My primary comfort, who slept by my cheek and found me food when I was too sad to gather mushrooms and dig roots to eat. My friend who built me a stick-mother, when I needed her fat shadow on the wall. A leaf lands on my shoulder from the canopy, and I squeeze the place that Kip will always go.
I sing. I sing for the honey bushes that only existed thanks to her strong beak that broke the flowers open for the bees. I sing for the seeds she pecked up for her meals, that her stomach balled into messages to far away places, and the myrtles and eucalypts that grew from her droppings. Her little bird body is still, but those trees still sway on the moors, will grow new baby trees in their fruit, birth them to be picked up by the next generation of currawongs. I sing for her future ancestors, that sing in her voice with the melody that she taught them. I sing for the Kip that continues in me, that ghostly pinch on my shoulder I will carry to the end of my days, a reminder that I am not alone.
I sing for what is gained.
The Adam Thompson ‘New Voice’ Award
Welcome to the Afterlife
By Mieke Burch
Launceston College
“There’s two kinds of spirits here, gin and us.”
The ship erupts in laughter at the joke and though the senior crew have all heard it, they share a nostalgic smile remembering their own journeys. Glasses of an alien gin are raised in cheers for the new crew members as they make an unsteady way out of the med bay. Their new starry eyes are greeted with the glorious sight of a starship and her captain.
“Good to see you on your feet! How was the trip?”
“Ah, dying’s not so bad really. It’s a great honour to be here Captain Calloway.”
“Welcome to the Afterlife.”
. . .
When it was discovered where souls went after death, scientists concluded if they caught the mind as it hurtled across space, they could send people over great distances in mere seconds. This solved the problem of how to get consciousness travelling faster than light, as previous theories had deemed the mind unable to cope with such a journey. Although studies had yet to properly find the exact location, the Australian Space Service began conducting experiments whilst a ghostly AI run ship called “The Afterlife” made its way past the galaxy. At first, they sent mice, then primates until finally, a brave astronaut volunteered.
Jade Calloway, sat and pondered all this as the doctor explained the procedure to her.
“Hey! Are you listening? I need your complete understanding of this! The ethics board barely cleared this so I have to do this right.”
“Hmm? Yes.”
“Do you even know the risks you agreed to?”
Jade shrugged, “Does it matter? I’ll be dying soon regardless,”
“Whilst that may be true you still have to be aware of the risks associated-”
“What, with dying? Why I can’t possibly imagine what might go wrong there. Anyhow, my prospects here are much better than the alternative, don’t you think?”
The doctor sighed and handed Jade various forms to sign. It was strangely refreshing, the unusually casual way in which this doctor spoke of her death. It had been discussed a lot lately and all the sympathy was getting a little tiring. It was as if people didn’t realise how painfully aware they made her of the tiny ticking clock in the back of her mind, ever present underneath every thought. Even if they didn’t say it, they looked at her as if she was some broken, pitiful thing to be mourned for before she even died.
Here at the launch centre at Tasmania, at least the doctors spoke honestly to her. Paisley in particular, who now signed her part of the forms, had a refreshingly brusque air about her that managed to quell whatever misery Jade spiralled into. The public, however, was far from comforting. Even those who tried to be empathetic just ended up being patronising and sad. If there were anything she’d change about dying, it was the publicity of it all.
By the time she and Paisley left her office, the hallway to the med bay was already filled with dozens of journalists and flashing cameras. Film crews lurked at every corner, broadcasting each moment and publishing a thousand articles. Though she did her best to ignore their yelled questions, one managed to slip through the cacophony.
“Do you have any last words to the world and the Australian Space Service before you go?”
Jade stopped at the door of the med bay and thought for a moment.
“Fuck cancer.”
With that, she turned and left them all behind.
. . .
Dying was strangely easy, thought Jade as she lay still on the patient’s bed. The moment the lethal fluid was injected the whole world began to slow. It seemed that time now took a step back to let her observe it as if she were watching someone else. First, the heart began to slow and the pause between each heavy beat grew longer by the millisecond. As the life-giving blood calmed its flow, her muscles began to tire and fade. One by one, each organ began to shudder and sleep. The brain, still clinging to its vivid fireworks, conjured up enough images to put a magician to shame and Jade began to dream. She dreamt of a little girl who watched the stars night after night, hoping someday they would respond to her ardent wishes. She dreamt of a teen who pushed herself through years of studying and pain just to see herself succeed. She dreamt of a woman who cried each day as her energy waned like the setting sun that clings to the horizon before losing to the night.
She dreamt of a being who was no longer, who rose from the final scene to join the long tapestry of existence. She was but a thread, pulled from crops of cotton and spun into life to be woven with the others. She dreamt of the spindly cosmic hands that pulled and tangled and cut where needed, and the loose threads that fell. For one, silent moment she saw the whole of existence, stretched out before her in its infinite dizzying beauty. And for one, quiet moment she understood the universe and the universe understood her.
. . .
Alarms wailed and lit up as an old soul was slammed into a new body. Her ears began to ring, almost loud enough to rival the incessant alarms that now shrieked at her. With each new wail, the pressure in her head grew and grew until it reached a pounding headache. The accompanying lights shone through her eyelids so brightly that strange patterns began to dance and whirl before her eyes, as if the world had gone mad. The spinning lights did not ease the nauseating numbness that shrouded her like a dull fog. Jade reached up to undo the cords and cables that wrapped her up, only the be greeted by a strange hand clumsily batting against her shoulder. She opened her mouth to speak but could only get out strangled cries as her tongue was seemingly replaced with an odd weight. Eventually, the foreign hand managed to pull out enough cords to send an electric bolt of feeling shooting through her. Her whole body buzzed as sudden sensation crackled across her skin, giving her pins and needles with each movement.
Finally, the ringing faded and the world stopped spinning, and Jade could open her eyes. Vague shapes slowly morphed into focus as her eyes adjusted to the light. She lay in a simplistic med bay set up around her with labelled bottles and syringes. Flashing lights of various monitors accompanied by shrill wails indicated her health on a sleek, shiny machine. Jade waited until the numbers and letters gradually sharpened enough for her to read them. They all said one thing.
Jade Calloway was alive and healthy.
She was alive. By the universe and all faiths, she was alive. Standing on the far side of the universe, having just travelled many millions of kilometres. In an entirely new body, bereft of any malady. Bereft of the terminal illness that threatened to cut her entirely from existence. Possibility and eternity now stretched before her in a weave made from endless potential. It tumbled through her veins, racing through each cell in her body till it reached her brain and danced like the stars themselves. She was alive.
In the corner, an ansible crackled to life.
“Jade! Jade, come in! Are you there?”
Jade staggered to the receiver, trying to remember how to talk as she pressed her hand against it. New mouth, new teeth, new tongue. How did it all work again?
“Uh... hh, I'm alive,”
Wild cheers crackled through the ansible as the team back on earth celebrated. Various voices called through, each congratulating her on the achievement. She was officially the first person to make it beyond the galaxy and live to tell the tale. Nadya the mission leader chimed in, cutting through the cacophony from control.
"How’s victory taste, Jade?” said Nadya.
“I’ll let you know when my tastebuds start working,”
The line crackled again as an administrator joined the call, “Jade, get this, we got a call from the White House, but all they said was “Well done,” and hung up. D’you think they’re mad we got here first?”
Jade Calloway laughed, “Big space achievement done in little ol’ Tassie? They must feel so insulted! No matter, they can go sulk while I'm living pretty up here,”
"Jade Calloway, Tasmania’s finest insulter of presidents and evader of cancer, the Australian Space Service would like to congratulate you on your new ship,” said Nadya.
“My what?”
"Congratulations Captain Calloway. Welcome to the Afterlife.”
The Adam Thompson ‘New Voice’ Award
Highly Commended
An Affair with the Dark
By Monique Schnitzer
Clarence High School
The cold was piercing, making hardened ice cubes of my toes despite three layers of colourful socks stuffed into my boots. A feeling of aliveness overcame me – a freezing shot of adrenaline fuelling the long walk to where the flames grazed the sky, alongside the hundreds of puffer-jacket clad revellers, armed with woollen gloves and thermal layers.
As we flooded through the gates in a cloud of steaming breaths, the atmosphere transformed. The peaceful quiet of the empty field was replaced by a cacophony of art. The glowing lights, strumming guitar and scent of spiced hot chocolate created a warmth in my soul, thawing me in a way crackling fires could never.
I paused, struck by the human beauty of it all – the children running in untamed circles, the couples intertwined in love-struck conversation, and the captivated smiles plastering the faces of the crowds surrounding the music stage.
“Hey...” A soothing voice murmured behind me.
As shivers cascaded down my back, I spun and fell into her eyes. Fairy lights danced within her pupils, framed by long lashes and a messy fringe.
Sorry... she mouthed to me, tilting her head even further towards the shoulder where a phone was jammed. I averted my eyes with an apologetic smile, turning to disappear into the smoky crowd. I wandered over to a fire pot, attempting to look relaxed while I let the heat burn the red from my cheeks.
Moments later, a hand settled on my shoulder, and this time I took more care before turning. It was the same woman, and those deep eyes now hinted at amusement.
“I didn’t mean to embarrass you before,” A blunt statement, but the unavoidable warmth returned to my face. “Fancy a drink?” She motioned to the stalls of food and drink across the paddock and started drifting towards them while holding eye contact with me. I felt compelled to follow, and after two hesitant steps, she grinned and turned to guide the way.
She took off towards the snaking mass of people swirling around the rustic tents filled with smiling servers, fretting chefs and warm food. I hastened to keep up without falling victim to the swampy mud engulfing my feet. Every few seconds I had to glance up to spot the elf-like leaves braided through short hair.
We broke out of the line, approaching a tent.
“Fruit punch? It’s warm, and surprisingly delicious.” I fumbled for the glass reusable cup in my bag and handed it to her as my answer. I watched, hypnotised, as steady hands ladled the dark liquid without spilling a drop.
She offered the steaming cup back, and I lifted it to my lips, pushing down my tightly wrapped scarf. The taste was a blend of sultanas and cinnamon – like a dense fruitcake but with no cake. We locked eyes over the rim of the cups, and her cheeks rose with a smile. I lowered the cup, and she stole my hand from my side, facing the chaos of people still surrounding the stalls. Pushing through, she dragged me across the paddock before I could process what happened.
Once free of the crowd, she slowed, and let go of my arm, only to slide her elbow around mine.
“This punch is yum,” I said, mentally face-palming at the awkwardness of my comment. I felt a chuckle in her chest and was grateful when no further reply came.
As we approached the edge of the darkness, she untangled our arms, sliding onto stool next to a bonfire. I tried to mimic her action, but had to jump slightly to reach the chair, and spilt my drink on my glove in the process.
As we sipped our drinks, we watched as people wandered over to a towering pile of branches and shrubbery waiting to become a bonfire. A flame was lit, and a mesmerizing chaos grew, until it was a mountainous inferno.
I looked back, in time to see her lean down and touch the shadows beneath our feet.
“Hold still,” she murmured, reaching to twirl a sprig of leaves into my hair. Her fingertips were cold against my face, and I tried to ignore the goosebumps raised on the back of my neck. I could feel my inhibitions fading and finally succumbed to the desire for more.
“Dance with me,” I blurted, raising my voice to be heard over the growing bellow of the flames.
She raised an eyebrow at me and laughed, before grabbing my hand and heading to an opening in the crowd. She took my other hand, and we danced – ignoring the rhythms and melodies of the music. After all, who needs music when dancing to the tune of ecstasy?
The flames began to recede, each tendril burning lower by the second. We continued to dance, and although fatigue slowed the movement, our enthusiasm never faltered. I relinquished the anxieties and worries weighing on my heart and let the flames devour them.
As the fire embers smoked, we collapsed beneath fairy lights with a plate of salty chips. I shivered, missing the scorching heat of the bonfire, and she moved closer to press warm arms around mine. We revelled in the anonymity of the dark – knowing all passing faces would fade from memory into nothingness by the time the sun roused us.
The moon began sinking from its peak, and I started begging for the sun never to rise again. Just to live in this moment, for the rest of my life. Too soon, security appeared, issuing harsh 10-minute warnings until closing time.
“Goodbye, stranger,” she smiled, embracing me in a final hug before melting into a silhouette in the darkness of the carpark.
Even by the time I reached home, sleep had not approached. I sat in the window, imagining the glow of my perfect stranger in the streetlight. After too few hours, the sun crept over the misty hills, yet somehow it lacked the striking vividness of the dark. As I watched the dawn, untangling the leaves from my hair and feeling like the only person on Earth, I thought about the value of moments.
The power of a moment is not the length, the forethought, or the hefty cheque afterwards. The power is the butterflies in your stomach, the feeling of belonging, and the spontaneity happiness brings. The magic of that night left me always looking for a face amongst a sea of thousands – longing to fall into those eyes once again. Every time I catch a glimpse, a feeling of falling sweeps through my body.
Life is made of these moments, that can be searched for but never faked. You carry them with you, in a pocket over your heart. Every now and then, take those moments out and admire them – appreciate their beauty. Never define life by a bank account, social media followers, or the praises of others. Instead, know that a good life is judged by the value of those moments treasured by your soul.