Jake Maison
02/06/24
Presence and Absence
Blythe Plier
27/03/24
Image description: A red arm chair alone in a grey scale room, with a bay seat looking out through a rain stained window.
In Case of Emergency
M Rae
10/12/2023
Image description: A yellow instruction manual titled ‘In case of an emergency, trust your human’ covered in blue and green splashes of liquid.
‘Keep crew to the living decks. Lock command. Open all bulkheads to allow the human freedom of movement. Turn on all lights to illuminate the endless white passages so the human can see what they are doing. And then trust the human to do their job.‘
What My Fingers Did
Jay McKenzie
08/11/2023
Content warning: themes of suicide
Image description: a three-layered chocolate cake is covered in white icing and the layers are stacked together by red icing that looks like blood.
‘What my fingers do is work with the precision of a surgeon. A sliver removed from the side of the cake to make space for the letter, the paper eased in with the care of a new heart or liver or lung. Then a gate of spongy cake pressed back in to mask the entrance, icing draped like a bridal gown over the cake, tucked down.’
Bud
Adelaide Sabre
29/10/2023
Image description: a black and white hand grasping forward.
‘Casey pushed his toy car slowly forward, the buckle of his sandal scraping across the ground. He wished he was inside with his pencils that his daddy said were every colour of the rainbow. He liked the new house and paddocks, and Grandma, who smelt like flowers, and fishing at the stream with Grandpa. Everything was nice here; it was only—’
Smooth is Fast
Adelaide Sabre
23/09/2023
Image description: a woman with white-blonde hair and bright blue eyes with red blood spilling down her face is covered in blue and purple light.
‘I follow her. Moving slow and smooth. Smooth is fast. I stand shadowed out of the light. I have walked this path many times this week to make sure I will not be seen. There will be no interruptions. She does not notice. She does not speed up; she does not glance behind. She does not notice me. I stay behind, just out of reach. I watch.’
Inhuman
Jake Maison
12/09/2023
Image description: a purple detached head on a lilac background with metal plates on the top of its head. It has vivid green liquid eyes and red blood spattering on its face near its nose and mouth. It has wires inside its cheeks.
‘A brilliant streak of purple against the black night sky came bearing down like a comet. The old house was rendered in stark relief against the light, its tenebrous shadows stretching out at impossible angles to flee the incoming wrath. There was a commotion from within the house, shouting, screams, the bustle and crash of movement. The rebels within had been awoken by the light.‘
Apple Tree
Andrew M Bedford
15/12/2022
Image description: a light pink background contrasts a darker pink tree filled with a medium pink gradient of leaves. Red apples dangle from the branches and leaves.
‘He swayed and looked unhurriedly down the fence line, first to his left, and then to his right. The trees were uniformly planted in perfect spacing creating an obvious and satisfying pre-determined distance from the fence. The Killer admired this greatly; the precision, the attention to detail, the order, the structure. For a moment he indulged in a short space of comfort.’
The Harvest
Opal Costello
31/03/2022
Image description: a young woman with blonde hair stands in a dark field. She is surrounded by green and lit in a red glow. She wears a light-coloured dress bunched up in her hands and has blood running down her legs.
‘I still for a moment, amongst the browning and diseased foliage. Soon, this will change. Life will return. How strange it is. The thirst for green. When the colour of life is red.‘
Bloomsday
Stefanie Gold
11/03/2022
Content warning: sexual abuse
Image description: an eye stands out of a red-purple background. It has a dark, nicely shaped eyebrow above it, tears welling up and spilling over dark eyelashes, and a red-purple rose in the middle of the iris in place of the pupil.
‘Ten minutes until this was over for another year. Ten minutes left and I didn’t even know his name.’
Paper Road Magazine 