ANNA: THE GIRL I WILL END UP HATING
Anna and I continued to text each other every five minutes or so. I learnt that she was twenty years old and got engaged when she was 19. She worked at a dollar discount store and didn’t know what to do with her life and didn’t seem to have any ambition to find out any time soon. She thought that …
ANNA: THE GIRL WITH A MEATY P****
Dear Carlos Fuckface, This started a couple of months ago, and I haven’t really told anyone about it yet, but given what’s going on right now I think now would be the perfect time to let you be the first person to read this story. You see I was sober, and it was a Friday evening and I was …
The sun wasn’t rising and it wasn’t setting, either – it was about three in the afternoon and time was what it was. Jude was smoking and Vail was typing something on her phone. “We’ve changed, but we really haven’t, if you think about it,” Jude said. “Want to go to Alfred & Constance?” Vail asked without looking up from …
QUICK LOVE STORY ABOUT ESMERALDA HEMINGOLD
If you’re below the age of 21, leave this website right now. It was a song by the Editors that was playing in the background of the house party as Dean Blake, the supposed author of this story, saw Esmeralda Hemingold in the distance, and as deep and wise as he tries to make himself out to be sometimes, all …
CHRISTMAS LETTER
I know I always say this, but I’m sorry I haven’t written in a long time. I prefer writing more than typing, but it just takes a lot of effort to literally write a letter, you know? I actually tried writing something to you a few weeks ago, but I couldn’t think of anything important to say. All I could …
LOVE AND MONEY
“Have you ever thought about God?” The pretty hostess asked me. I was with Jude and this guy named Alfred or something, and we were in a private room with four or five or so hostesses. They were all pretty, and they made love seem so easy and so accessible for men like me. All you need for them to …
WHERE DO CHEATERS GO WHEN THEY DIE?
… and we somehow made it to the next morning – we were in West End, eating overpriced breakfast. It’s painfully hot in Brisbane now, and Mandy acknowledged this fact by telling me, “It’s painfully hot in Brisbane now.” I didn’t reply. She then spent about twenty minutes complaining about a colleague before trickling off into a silence that I …
ALIVE FOREVER
I wonder what it would be like if I was a crack dealer. It’d be a pretty fuckin’ stressful job. Or I wonder what it would be like to be one of those heroes that people always write about. Like a Nobel Prize winner or an Emma Watson or a Michael Jordan or something. I wonder if there are heroes …
YOU POWERFUL WOMAN YOU
“You know I tried to cheat on you,” I told her. “And then what happened?” “She wasn’t interested.” “You poor man.” “Women have it easier,” I said. “When it comes to what?” “Finding men.” “Quantity over quality, honey.” I turned my phone on silent and placed it next to my plate. “That’s the whole problem with this world. Men want …
SKYDIVING
The next weekend, we went skydiving. We got to the place too early, so we walked to the beach, and she did star jumps and I threw rocks at birds. We went to McDonald’s and ordered some juice and we spoke about things that I no longer remember. I looked at her and took a photo: we’d gotten to that …
KNIFE FIGHT WITH A GIRLFRIEND
Mandy was kicked out of home when she was twenty-two years old by both of her parents because they hated the fact that she was dating someone from China. Although her relationship with her then boyfriend never panned out, her relationship with her parents was never the same again, and I knew this because we’d spend hours of our evenings, …
ONE DAY YOU’RE GOING TO LOSE ALL OF YOUR FRIENDS
“If you have the weight of the world on your shoulders, then why are you standing so upright?” Mandy told me a few stories and I told her a few of my own. We were in some place around the Gold Coast, and we were in a hot air balloon and I hadn’t seen anyone but her for the past …
NUDE AND CHILDISH GAMBINO
“It’s July,” she eventually said. “Like, well, it’s like Saturday, and we’re near the end of July.” “Let me ask you something. Have you been hurt before?” “That’s such a typical thing to ask. Are you a typical person?” “I like to think that I am.” She stood up and put some underwear on and tapped on her phone. “Here. …
EVERYONE WANTS TO BE RICH
I know it was only one post ago, but things with Sara went downhill quickly. Whatever the hell we had ended for no good reason, but that was fine with both of us – we walked out of a two-week romance unscathed. But something about all the real estate and business stuff she kept going on about got me greedy …
THE GIRL WHO WANTS ME TO MAKE A LOT OF MONEY
It’s been a while, hasn’t it? I suppose I haven’t posted in some time because I’ve fallen into the trap of working, and of boxing, and of reading a fuckload of books, and of promoting Surface Children, and of writing for a magazine. I also started doing things that writers shouldn’t do: I lessened the drinking, I began reading books …
The Key To A Happy Life Is –
I was busy, but we were under the moon. Or the sun. Or whatever was floating above us at that time. Sam has a small office in the valley. Sam is about forty years old and has more wrinkles than most forty year olds. They crease deep, deep and hard. Sam’s a bookkeeper, and I’d known him since I …
THE BIG BAD EASTER BUNNY
This was the first Easter Sunday where I woke up not knowing how I got to where I was. I woke up in a café in the Valley or New Farm or West End or something and Jude was there, and so was his girl, and so was some other girl, and all they did was laugh at me. We …
THERE IS NO TIME FOR GRIEF
I hadn’t slept in two days. I got to work at ten in the morning, drove home at about three in the afternoon. I drove to Vail’s home, parked on her driveway. I watched her house for a while before giving her a call. No one answered her phone, so I called the receptionist. “Hello?” “Hi.” “Dean?” “Who else would …
JUDE RETURNS FROM AFRICA
Jude returned from Africa on Wednesday. Nothing about him seemed that different, except that maybe he’d lost a little weight and his eye bags were deeper; he tried to hide some of it with foundation. “I saw a video online of twins making out,” Jude said after putting his drink down. “Like actual, biological twins. I mean the idea is …
AMBITIOUS KIDS
I was in a bad mood about something and I found myself sitting at the RE with two guys and two girls. One guy was working, the other guy was unemployed. The two girls were studying at uni or design college or something. None of them were smokers. “So?” One of the guys, the fat one, asked everyone. “So what?” …
SO THIS IS CHRISTMAS
I was alone again, just sitting there in Queen Street Mall, and it was a few days before Christmas, and for some reason I was thinking about Eva when this guy – scrawny, tall, dressed like a stereotypical homeless person, kind of held his right hand like a T-Rex would – circled around in front of me before stopping to …
JUDE AND ARIEL IN MY DREAM
There’s a rumour that’s going on about the world. That it’s ending. That food is running out, that resources are running out. There’s a rumour that the government, which is more than happy to spy on people but begins arresting them if anyone reveals any of its secrets, will one day control every single thing, even our thoughts, if they …
HOW TO LOSE SOMEONE YOU CARE ABOUT
Some people move forward in life, some people get worse. Some people, like me, are trapped in a cycle between both. I’d get a job, get a woman, and then I’d lose that job, and then I’d lose that woman, and then I’d get a new job and a new woman all over again. In between all of this I’d …
A POINTLESS THEORY ABOUT LOVE
Things weren’t going so well for Ariel and I so she flew us both to Melbourne for two days. We caught the SkyBus to our hotel and checked in and when we dropped our bags on the carpet we looked at each other and laughed for no reason; she said she was tired, but the day was never coming back …
A FAT OLD MAN AND MY NEW BOOK SURFACE CHILDREN
I finally finished my book the other day, and to celebrate I called Ariel and told her to help me experience a really fucked up evening. She refused, so we yelled at each other for a while until I finally hung up and called this guy I met at a writer’s festival once, this guy who takes poetry way too …
HOW TO WRITE A BOOK AND NOT GET PUBLISHED
When I remember myself and when I remember my life it will all be portrayed in black and white. It won’t be in HD or 3D and it’ll be lower than low budget; the screen quality will be a little fuzzy and sometimes you’ll have to bang the screen to see it properly. A lot of the scenes, the scenes …
HER FACE WAS DRAWN WITH CHARCOAL
I want a lot of things. I want a big black car. I want a bunch of money. I want to feel postmodern, relevant, sleepy. I want to eat the stuff that makes the clouds. I want to fuck the moonlight. I want to forget a whole lot of things. But there are also a few bits and pieces of …
ARIEL’S AUNTIE
I wonder what it’d be like to be popular. Are popular people happy? How long do they spend on the phone? How much do they spend on birthday presents? How many friends do they have on Facebook and Instagram and Twitter and Vine and whatever the hell else is out there? As I approach my late twenties I’ve come to …
JUDE GOES TO AFRICA
While everything else with Ariel was going on a lot was also going on with Jude, who, as the days went by, became more and more of a prick. “You know sometimes I wish I was someone else,” he said while driving us to some party in the west. “But then sometimes I don’t. Shit, I don’t know.” He pulled …
THE PIMP I’LL NEVER SEE
Ariel was a lot of things. She was smart and she was ambitious and she was the most jealous person I’d ever met. “I know this is unfair, but if I see you with a girlfriend I will shove my fist down her throat and kill her.” Some part of me actually wanted to see it happen. When we first …
PAYING ARIEL A VISIT
In my lonely times I think about life a lot. I think about that moment when I’ll stand under the sun ten years from now, and then that moment when I’ll stand under the sun thirty years from now, and then that moment when I’ll stand under the sun fifty years from now. I wonder if the stupid little things …
BUYING LOVE AND HAPPINESS
On the surface, things were getting better. My vision was improving, and thanks to the pills, I could sleep a lot easier. On some days I’d wake up, write for a few hours, take a pill or two, and then sleep a dreamless sleep all over again – it was perfect. I also found decent freelance work: two women in …
LETTER FROM HEARTBREAK
… and I know it’s been a while, but I thought I’d write to you about everything in the world. I want you to know that I’m doing fine and that once in a while I read the work you send me, those poems and stories and things, and I want you to know that I’m proud of you. I …
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU’RE BLIND AND PEOPLE COME OVER FOR A DRINK
It’d been about a week since my PRK laser eye surgery and things had improved: I could walk around with my eyes open and when things were good, objects in the distance looked clearer and crisper than when I used to wear contact lenses. I’d also become slightly addicted to the sleeping pills they gave me, Hypnodorm – it was …
PART TWO.
Time is something you don’t necessarily have to hold on to. I don’t know why, but that evening, last year, when you walked out of the third party we’d been to that week with your stupid friends who didn’t understand us – who didn’t understand me – I couldn’t help but feel hollow – is hollow a feeling? I know …
LASER EYE LONELINESS
I had this dream once of becoming a successful writer. I’d be smoking a cigarette on top of a pile of money and every day, I’d buy some girl with nice legs a brand new car. Everyone would buy my books: lonely people would buy my books, the downtrodden would buy my books, bored middle-aged housewives would buy my books, …
WE’RE ALL SLAVES TO SOMETHING
I know I’ve been writing about women a lot lately but my story with Natasha is a story I just had to finish. You see, Natasha and I met again a few more times: we had dinner once in a while, we went to an event once in a while, we texted once in a while. “You know what I’ve …
A BAD CASE OF INSIGNIFICANCE
I had a thing with a girl once. Her name was Come Here. I met her at a car park, and I met her again at a party and I met her for the last time on her uncle’s kitchen floor. There was nothing wrong with her but there was nothing that right either. Her face curved strangely and she …
ONLINE DATING
I’d always been suspicious of online dating. To me, online dating was one of those things you secretly did when you’ve completely run out of people to try and impress. Sort of like the first school dance you go to, when you go in expecting you can get anyone you want. When you realise you can’t, you start to lower …
FLOODS AFTER AUSTRALIA DAY
I woke up in an apartment near the city with bad breath and that’s about it. “Morning,” she said. I sat up. “Morning.” “Morning,” he said. “Morning.” “Morning,” the other she said, covering herself with a pillow. “Morning.” I rubbed my eyes and checked my phone. “Did I sleep talk last night?” Michelle cooked breakfast, which was cereal and …
HAPPY NEW YEAR AND AN UPDATE ON MY BOOK OF SHORT STORIES
As I stumbled around Jude’s pebbled driveway at the end of the 2012 countdown and as some guy kept playing “Love Will Tear Us Apart Again” from his iPhone 5 I thought this: it feels exactly the same as last year. 2012 ended too quickly. I wasted a shitload of time but still managed to be productive during some of …
WHAT WE WANT FOR CHRISTMAS
“I want three naked girls and a huge bed to use them on,” Jude said with a cigar in his mouth. Vail rolled her eyes and dealt the next round of cards. “That’s disgusting.” “You’re disgusting,” he snapped. We were in Victor’s or Samuel’s or Michael’s or Whatever His Name’s house playing poker. I looked at my cards and …
THERE’S ALWAYS SOMEONE COOLER THAN YOU
There’s this family friend of mine who has always been better than me. We’re the same age but he’s taller, better looking, more athletic, more successful. He was always the one who easily found a job; he was always the one with cooler looking friends and even better looking girlfriends. I sort of stopped talking to him when we were …