Can you die from not being listened to?

By Nicola Lazenby

“Can you die from not being listened to?”

That was the question she had asked after regaining consciousness on the floor of a government hospital. Unlike the usual hospital smells  – disinfectant, anaesthetic, bleach, needle and bedpan metal – this hospital smelled organic. Like a flesh market. Sweet and rotten. The mortality market.

Was the landscape the day?

By Jess Richards

Was the landscape the day? Or the day the landscape? Hard to tell. The desert and timid shrubs stretched right to the edge of my vision. Meeting in some time equals space who gives a fuck kinda continuum. Like two flat pieces of bread laid open, like possibility split you know? The opening of that most simple question. And shit was it hot. The desert lapped like waves of heat at the edge of the road.

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By Olivia Walton

This was how it was for her.

Mornings were quiet (shadow quiet) and usually cold. Even in the summer the house did not hold heat well. 

Its floors were concrete and its eaves high.

Covered Tracks

By Etienne Van Bart

We approached the club. The veranda was crowded so I commented that the place was packed. My friend Eric knew the guy at the door and we got in without paying for our stamps. Inside, we waded into the packed dance floor, where electro was banging and kept near the edge, looking around. A stream of guys and girls was passing outside and Eric suggested we head that way for a drink.

Making Tracks out of Anything

By Kimon de Greef

I had a friend, up until about six years ago, who was a musical genius. He could compose a track out of anything. His name was William and he was short and very thin, with rust coloured hair and watery blue eyes. We would be walking together through the fields behind his parents’ house and something would happen, like a guinea fowl getting startled by the dog, and he would say, “That bird just squawked in G minor”. He always spoke softly, like he was listening out for something inaudible.