Depop Drama
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Think your name would look good in print? Woroni is always open for submissions. Email write@woroni.com.au with a pitch or draft. You can find more info on submitting here.
Cole Johnson
The Voice of ANU Students Since 1950
Think your name would look good in print? Woroni is always open for submissions. Email write@woroni.com.au with a pitch or draft. You can find more info on submitting here.
Cole Johnson
Belinda’s eyes met their reflection in the TV’s dimly lit glass. Her irises, normally blue, were turned black by the bodies of the people on the screen. From this angle, her eyes formed neat little almond shapes. Pleased, she looked around the room. She watched to see if anyone else had noticed how nice her eyes looked today. She tended to collect the approving gaze of others. Compliments were kept, and insults swallowed by an intentional amnesia. She didn’t like to think of herself through a critic’s eye. She disliked the sting. The other women in the waiting room were too occupied watching their own reflections to be jealous of Belinda’s.
Suddenly conscious of her voyeurism, Belinda’s eyes narrowed as they turned back to the muted TV. She watched images of figures as they were thrown against the ground. Their bodies were superimposed against the white sterility of the waiting room. A closeup showed paramedics covering the face of a man in a stretcher. His nose was cracked open, turned blue. Belinda covered her own nose self-consciously, not wanting to see it until after the operation. She considered it too bony. It lacked the plump vitality that it held in her youth. She saw tiny people running down across the TV screen, their arms held up in surrender. How pretty her freckles looked against the clouds of smoke rising from the edge of the frame.
The synthetic red light coming from the screen fell a few centimetres short of Belinda’s face. It was soaked up by the waiting room’s fluorescence before it could land and stain her skin. Belinda watched. Her appointment wasn’t for another half hour, but she’d always appreciated punctuality. She wore her promptness like a badge. She searched the TV screen, looking for the time. Frustrated, she saw that the four little black numbers on the corner of the screen blended into the footage behind them and became unreadable. She glared at the footage of painted cardboard and raised fists, willing them to go away. She needed to know the time in order to determine how long she had left sitting stiff against the hard backed chair. The waiting room was starting to turn oppressive. Belinda was beginning to notice that her skin sagged in contrast to the sharp angles of the other women’s faces. She pushed her hand upwards across her face, remembering how her nephew had thought that she was the same age as her older sister. The television blurred and unblurred as her eyes slid in and out of focus. Her fingers gripped the inside of her palms. She wished that she could know the time. She was good with time. Better than most people she knew. Suddenly, the screen cleared and her breathing began to slow again as she focused on counting down the minutes.
Twenty seven minutes until the appointment. Belinda continued to watch. The bright lights on the screen were a happy distraction from the empty buzz of the waiting room. Headlines traversed the bottom of the screen. Belinda saw the word ‘death’ and the word ‘brutality’ and the word ‘George.’ The last word, she rolled around in her mouth. It tasted bitter. She’d known a George once. Anxiety ticked behind her eyes. She remembered a man, a ring, a cloth-covered coffin. She remembered when her eyes searched for more than just their own reflection. The man had taught her that if she watched a person for long enough, their face would start to tell stories.
Belinda furrowed her brow and this time didn’t worry about the frown lines it would cause. Her fingers uncurled themselves from the inside of her palms. They reached again towards her face. This time, her fingers traced their way over curves and ridges. They met wrinkles and eyelashes and remembered that the man had felt them before her. The waiting room dimmed. Belinda looked upwards, meeting eyes on the screen. These eyes were young. These eyes were hurting. Through tears, they looked pleadingly at Belinda. Belinda looked back. The girl called her name.
“Belinda?” A nurse asked.
Belinda pulled away from the screen. What a pretty nose that girl had, she thought, before following the nurse into the surgery room.
Think your name would look good in print? Woroni is always open for submissions. Email write@woroni.com.au with a pitch or draft. You can find more info on submitting here.
Tilda Njoo
The hills are alive,
not with the sound of music,
but with the sound of silence
solitude
softness
Inside.
As I walk, I breathe in deep,
clear country air
massaging my soul,
telling my heart,
‘You are safe here.’
Though all my life I haven’t felt safe.
There’s too much conflict
chaos
corruption
to live at ease,
look at the trees
without worrying
they’ll fall down.
There are two worlds:
one of darkness,
one of light.
Here, my life is
light as the Sun,
keeping me warm,
making me glow.
I wonder if here
children grow taller
and stronger.
The longer I stay,
the more I keep asking.
I know there’s something in this water
what made me better
without medicine.
And I can say without a doubt,
‘This is what Heaven looks like.’
Think your name would look good in print? Woroni is always open for submissions. Email write@woroni.com.au with a pitch or draft. You can find more info on submitting here.
Phoebe Lupton
Away from the battle I fled in great haste,
Fearing for my life and the weight of my sin.
The scent of death in my mouth I did taste,
And wonder of the coffin they’d bury me in.
When at once I did notice, my surrounds,
A fearful and decrepit place quite rotten.
A swamp, once a grave yard, peppered with mounds,
Holding the bones of the dead long forgotten.
Behind piled tomb stones I made myself masked,
My pursuers clothed in the pale moon’s light.
Gleefully talking of what had been tasked,
Lusting like beasts for the next savage fight.
They searched as an owl may search for its prey,
Keen eyes on tenterhooks for alien presence.
Upon them time seemed not to weigh,
Determined they were to vouchsafe my penance.
When at last my hunters found
My corner of this most ghastly hell,
I shivered in darkness near burial mound,
With a stench of fear they surely did smell.
I closed my eyes and waited still,
For death’s final, unending hold.
To pay my unearthly debt and bill,
The price to be my immortal soul.
But death’s cold touch, I did not embrace,
In this world of gloom and mist I remained.
Huddled in fear in that foul place,
As if to my tomb I were already chained.
When all at once I realised,
A stillness in the cold night air.
As though my chasers were paralysed,
The wolves no longer sought the hare.
They stood stock still and statuesque,
Mannequins in a department store.
Frozen there, they seemed grotesque,
Not an inch they moved, not one, no more.
With them fixed in place, I arose from pray,
Wondering at their current condition.
Forgetting not for a moment they,
Composed my deadly opposition.
Realisation now filled me with dread,
I knew I was no longer alone.
Slowly I turned and looked ahead,
To see him sitting upon tombed stone.
The man near spectral in the mist,
Smoking from rolled tobacco paper.
Resting his cheek upon his fist,
With a gaze that did not stir nor falter.
“From where have you come?” he asked me with ease,
Startled as I was at the breaking of this hush.
Thinking what could I say, his question to appease,
And of what did this strange presence discuss.
“I have run from a battle. But, to whom am I speaking?”
I asked in earnest but with fear in my voice.
“I have many names, all of them quite unforgiving,
Mephistopheles, Lucifer, I leave you the choice.”
Could it be that before me stood the father of lies,
The fallen angel cast from heaven, I meet?
The one all religious texts do despise,
Given license to roam with unheavenly feet?
“What do you want?” I asked with composure,
Assuming this, of course, was some kind of a hoax.
“What could Satan gain from this sort of exposure?”
An answer from him I surely would coax.
“Exposure? What tripe!” He said with a smile,
“This sort of thing is merely routine.
You simply haven’t seen me at work for a while,
The job is quite real, just vastly unseen.”
“What do you want of me, evil creature you are?
Although I extend you great thanks for halting my foes,
Why, pray tell, this tremendous seminar?
A well needed holiday from the abyss, I suppose?”
His face became solemn and his eyes grew blood red.
He stood from his spot and put hat into hand.
Revealing curved ram’s horns that grew from his head,
As any shadow of doubt from my mind did disband.
“If you stay your course and do nothing to change,
Your memory will be damned to the dark and decrepit.
This fate awaits all cowards who will not exchange,
Their dishonour in the face of the hell they inherit.”
I now saw the grave upon which he stood,
The tombstone crumbled and decayed by the ages.
Through the tangled weeds and overgrown wood,
I sought the engraving, heedless of dangers.
I scrambled and clawed at the wretched vines,
Great in number and woven so thick.
Why had this grave among so many shrines,
Gone neglected by all in a way so horrific?
There at the last, the name stood revealed,
The greatest shock I ever have witnessed.
The name that was hidden, now unconcealed,
Was none but my own as true meaning surfaced.
“The penance you’ll pay for the way you behave,
The woe of your acts and deeds so unworthy,
Is written as plain as the name on this grave,
If you do nothing to avert such causality.”
These were the words of this agent of fate,
The one who fell from such glory on high.
Seeing to it that I not repeat his mistake,
All regret and compunction I did damnify.
I saw now what this spirit sought to show,
My life sprawled out like some great atlas.
Filled with cowardice and paved with sorrow,
With no direction but further on into darkness.
“From this moment on, my life will be changed,
A coward and deserter no more!” I did cry.
“No regret shall I hold lest I be deranged,
My immortal soul, I will make you deny.”
Again my angel smiled, a smirk of satisfaction,
Replaced his hat and set forth into the mist.
Had he expected from me such violent reaction?
Or truly condemned my soul to his list?
It was now that I woke, on the eve of a storm,
The battle I fled, returned to me anew.
Better to face my demons on fields of red,
Than the mists that from foul cemetery blew.
Gathering sense and with courage new-found,
I go to whatever fate awaits a soul such as I.
Whether toward damnation or restfulness bound,
My mistakes fall to none but me to justify.
Think your name would look good in print? Woroni is always open for submissions. Email write@woroni.com.au with a pitch or draft. You can find more info on submitting here.
A. Banfield-Powell
Think your name would look good in print? Woroni is always open for submissions. Email write@woroni.com.au with a pitch or draft. You can find more info on submitting here.
Indy Shead
When he came to Sydney on exchange from the U. of I. at Urbana–Champaign, C.A. Brandenburg started renting an apartment on Gloucester Street. It was, at the time, near the height of fashion. None of us knew where he got the money for it. There he was wedged between St Patrick’s Church and a long row of what used to be warehouses. Down the street from him was the dormitory of the New York University foreign exchange, where all the American undergrad girls stayed. He was with them often, and soon they all loved him. He was himself of Midwestern extraction — a Peoria sand-hiller who liked to tell people he was from Chicago. I visited him under the pretext of heading uptown for mass at St Patrick’s, but really I came solely for him. When knocking on his door I’d often find him with a girl, and he would tell her to go or bid her stick around, and, “Hear this, my little lovely, you gone little girl, Italo’s here, he’s just taken Holy Mass, look at the Dharmakaya light on him, and listen, listen to Italo,” affecting his Chi-town accent, and he’d have me read from my notebook whatever I was working on writing that week. He would hear his name in my voice and his ears would prick up and his face brighten with unserious vanity.
I called our group the Cadets because we frequented the little Glebe bar-café called The Cadet. It was by following me around that C.A. become ingratiated with us, and soon he adopted us as his foremost exhibit. We became accessories to his all-encompassing self. I was the writer, Delco was the artist, et cetera. We each got used to being introduced to people by him. He curated us. He had taught himself the language of counterculture, and with us he finally had a chance to practise it. He also corralled together an inexhaustible series of square, respectable people, whom he’d introduce to our circle, and after a few times we wouldn’t see them again either because they’d grown weary of our navel-gazing — oh don’t worry about them, they’re squares! — or because C.A. had disposed of them for another group – just wait till you see who I’m bringing next week!
“Oh they’re all here, come on over and meet the Cadets — yes that’s what they call themselves, isn’t that beat? This is the real crowd here, the people with their fingers on the pulse.” He said this one night in Kaskade Bar with another New Yorker on his arm, along with her entourage and all their boyfriends, who uniformly dressed and drank like business majors.
“There is Italo Salmoragho, who is set to become a great writer. And next to him is my friend Painter Delco, who paints” (that part delivered deadpan, without a hint of irony) “and here’s Dave Peukert, Scott Bez- jak, Germ Bryggen, Mr Princeton, Mr Novik — he’s miserable — Bruno Serero, Phellype, and Liedesow, who’s trying to break into theatre…”
Now, the ‘C’ in C.A. Brandenburg stood for Courtney, a family name, and a rare point about which he felt a sense of shame — rare, because in all other things he was as shameless as a naked animal. So, he introduced himself as ‘C.A.’, or ‘Brandenburg’, or sometimes, mysteriously, as ‘Cal’. His father had been a professional soldier — the Gulf, Somalia, Yugoslavia — who was obsessed by old German nobility, particularly the Hohenzollerns, to whom he believed he was distantly related. C.A.’s mother hailed from Trieste. According to C.A., his father came along sometime after Bosnia and swept her off her feet on one of his grand tours. I had to know him a long time before he would tell me anything like that, and who could say whether or not it was true.
It wasn’t long after I heard that story that C.A. disappeared from all our lives. He took off two months before his exchange was set to run out. No goodbyes. He might have gone back to Illinois, but there were a hundred other places he said he dreamed of going to. He might have gone to New York after one of his girlfriends, or Paris on one of his Poundian sprees. None of us knew. And for a good long while after that, when- ever we sat for drinks at The Cadet, or Kaskade, or at Picklock’s over on Crown Street, in the back of our minds, we’d be waiting patiently for him to stride in and show us off to his people.
Edward Anderson
CONTENT WARNING: Death
The poet is slain
she lies in vain,
wishing, praying, for that sweet refrain.
For years she has craved
a breath of salvation –
her pen lies empty,
the words are broken –
trapped –
temporary relief.
She is crying.
The poet dies,
the poet cries –
around and around we go
children on a carousel.
We think we escape,
but never.
Never –
the poet is silenced.
She lives in the shadows –
forced to write without a sound,
her own death note.
She is empty.
The poet is killed,
she lives unfulfilled –
Sylvia –
tell Emily, I am on my way home –
Ophelia calls to me,
I can hear her, in the daffodils.
We are all one –
you and I –
we are soldiers,
wading in on the tide –
searching for the light.
For when she is fallen – deep within the flowers,
the poet sighs –
She is free.
Indy Shead
As of this very moment, I have never felt more alive, Because each day I wake up with only me, myself and I. Such a cruel irony, all those peasants, their social lives cut short,
Now they can’t hang out with friends, they’ve cancelled all team sports.
But I believe, all of my life, I’ve prepared for this day to come,
Utopic isolation: I knew there’d be a time when I’d have to see no one.
It’s such a rush, to be alone, and with my mighty sword, Battle terrible monsters and RSI from spamming my glowing keyboard.
Any sunlight burns my skin, inside the air is damp and close.
I soldier on, because here in my bed is where I find comfort most.
Netflix is my special place, I binged Tiger King in one day. My dances have made me Tik Tok famous, should I audition for Broadway?
I love how all my extrovert friends can’t tell if I’m even jokin’
When I say that there’s nothing more satisfying than saying nothing, because your mic on Zoom is ‘broken’. Social distancing saved my life, and to it I am ever grateful,
Cause there’s nothing worse than going out to restaurants: UberEats, give me a plateful!
All those people going to Bondi, they must be sick in the head.
It’s like they have no self-control, do they want this virus to spread?
I just can’t believe someone would want to voluntarily go outside!
The internet is so freaking cool and if you need, into those DMs you can slide!
Sometimes I wonder if I’ll find someone who too loves the silent abyss,
Who likes to stay in bed, reads and bakes, who thinks a life at home is bliss.
So, if you’re reading now (you know who you are), and you think it’d be a treat,
Please isolate with me, it’s not that hard, and you wouldn’t even have to speak.
Cause I am just an introvert, but this I know is true,
That if I were to be lonely, I’d only want to be lonely with you.
Samantha Wong
CONTENT WARNING: Allusions to Alcoholism and Climate Change; Depression; Brief Mention of Death
Day 1
I am alone, and I’m okay with it.
My alarm goes off at 7am. I sit up from my bed. Then I remember that I don’t have anywhere to go today, so I fall back down.
I open my blinds and look out the window. It’s a nice, sunny day outside. Maybe I’ll go for a run later.
I get up, have a shower, have breakfast and start work at my desk. I work until 5pm with a break for lunch and a run in-between, like I’d normally do if I went into the office.
I channel-surf, have a cup of tea, brush my teeth again and go to bed at 10pm.
Day 2
I am alone, and I think I’m going to get used to it.
My alarm goes off at 7am. I turn it off and go straight back to sleep. I wake up at 8am. I got a lot of work done yesterday, so I can afford to sleep in for a bit.
I get up, have a shower, have breakfast and start work. I get everything done quickly. To kill time, I go on my phone for a bit. Every post is about crisis, sickness, mass panic. My heart flutters. I’m in the midst of it all. We all are.
I try to go for a run, but it ends up just be- ing a walk. Today, my muscles seem heavier, my legs seem weaker, my breathing seems faster. Oh well. We all have bad days.
I channel-surf and have a glass of wine. I brush my teeth and go to bed at 10pm, but I can’t sleep. My mind creates stories, images, conversations with my family I might never have. By the time I fall asleep, it’s got to be at least midnight.
Day 3
I am alone, and it doesn’t feel right. I’ve been in isolation for days now, and while I thought I was used to it, I’m getting cabin fever.
I jump out of bed and walk outside in my pyjamas. I look up at the sky – the clouds are grey, looming, like the end of the world is coming.
I don’t feel like breakfast.
I stay lying on my bed, thinking about all the possible things that could happen in the near future. Everyone could die. The human race might perish with the Earth crumbling underneath us, the Sun exploding above us. This kind of thinking isn’t helpful, but I feel helpless.
Mum calls me, but my brain is moving so quickly, my mouth can’t keep up. We make small talk for five minutes, then I make an excuse and hang up.
I channel-surf again, not paying attention to anything on the screen. All of the images blur together, people’s voices are simultaneously too loud and too quiet, and my brain just won’t stop moving. I give up and have a nap.
I have dinner at 6pm, a glass of wine at 7pm and another three glasses of wine by 8pm. I’m in bed by 9pm. I sleep for what seems like the rest of eternity
Day 4
I am alone and I am in bed, even though it’s midday. Everything seems wrong, like I’m looking into a mirror that distorts your reflection, except nothing’s been exaggerated right now. My life, my present, is my reality. And I don’t know what to do.
I go about my day on autopilot. I get tunnel vision, and my legs feel like they’re made of steel. I don’t bother turning on the TV. Mum calls, but I don’t bother answering. What would I say, anyway? While yesterday my brain was running at a million miles per hour, today it’s barely moving a muscle.
My stomach cries out for me to eat some- thing, so I make two-minute noodles. I eat it, but my tongue doesn’t register the taste. Afterwards, I eat an apple, hoping it’ll up my energy levels, but I still feel like a zombie.
I’m in bed by 9pm. All I want to do is sleep.
Day 5
I am alone. I didn’t turn my phone off last night, and now it’s making a buzzing sound. I don’t really want to answer it, but I check it anyway. It’s from Mum:
Hi darling, I just wanted to check if everything was okay. You didn’t pick up yesterday. I get the sense you might be depressed. You know you can talk to me anytime. I’m only one phone call away. I love you so much, Mum xx
I am alone. But maybe, I’m not after all. Maybe, there are people I can rely on to get me and them through this mess. I text Mum back:
I am depressed. Everything’s so hard right now, but I’m so grateful to have you.Thank you for all you do, and sorry for not picking up yesterday. Maybe we can talk later to- day? Love you. I’ll be okay xx
And for the first time in days, I genuinely believe it.
Phoebe Lupton
O sweet girl
How young you were just yesterday
How small and fleeting you seemed to be
Tucked away in a little city
So much room to breathe
Then you fled on the backs of others
To places far and near
Kissing everything you could
Those you’ve touched so feared
O sweet girl how far you’ve come
Danced at every party under the sun
So soon a household name
Rolling off the tongue
Leaving us in mourning
The wake so cruel and long
O sweet girl forgive us
We really need you gone
Sisana Lazarus