Max Moodley: 0028

Victoria Williams: 0071

Well you could put it this way – Sara was unconscious through no fault of her own, and I was on the scene with a small pharmacopoeia and whatever else was in her drink, there was no malice or malevolence.

I only wanted to search her rooms anyway, and afterwards I removed her shoes and put them on and then I stood for a while and paced for while etc, just to see if I felt any different in them. I did not walk the mile you’re supposed to, but still significant insights revealed themselves…

Afterwards I left her to wake up on her own with my boots on her feet. Her dreams probably turned out differently as a result.

Duplicity by Rosemary Lombard

the truth
lies
within

September 11 (2) by Gary Cummiskey

Vultures

Vultures semi-circle overhead.

Victoria Williams: 0070

Today is about three-quarters done, but the sun is still up and so am I. Ever since I started working and bought a planner, life has arranged itself into segments of time, and I tick them off as they pass: two hours till the end of my shift, two days till my next day off, two weeks till my long weekend. Oh every month I live for my long weekend (last month: ice-cream sculpting. / this month: cigarette-rolling / next month: quitting smoking). But all this time ticking, and I’d be horrified if I didn’t know, if I didn’t believe, if I hadn’t been told – that all the years a person spends on minimum wage in a lifetime add up to the years they are allotted in the afterlife, before of course you’re exiled and return to mortal form for another round. Actually it’s a complicated system of mathematics that only a chosen few will ever know: but in essence, the more money you have, the less time you need in Nirvana anyway. So say the priests of the chapel installed in the break room.

Carrots!

September 11 (1) by Gary Cummiskey

One Trick Pony

I can impersonate a one trick pony but that's about it.

Max Moodley: 0026

Victoria Williams: 0069

Dinner Party Menu

Starter: Biscuits
Main Course: Scrambled eggs on toast, with chips.
Dessert: Ice cream, with biscuits.

The Bring and Braai in A Look Away

"Pablo Picasso once said: 'Give me a museum and I'll fill it.' I'd like the class to think about that for a moment. Isn't it rare today to find an artist who is able to confront his body issues in such a frank manner? Not for Picasso, the existential cop-outs of the crash diet, the corset of Photoshop touch-ups. Instead he declared: 'This is me. Deal with it."

The Bring and Braai: another Shaggy short story by Pravasan Pillay and Anton Krueger

Michelle Nair: 0003

Max Moodley: 0025

Victoria Williams: 0068

It was not even supposed to be a wake, the timing of her sister’s death had merely been a coincidence, but still, there was the coffin in the middle of the table anyway. One had to rethink the etiquette surrounding passing the salt...

Forthcoming from Dye Hard Press

ISBN: 978-0-620-48421-3

A new collection of 20 poems by one of South Africa's most innovative poets. 44 pages.

Publication scheduled for the end of October.

Price and availability to be confirmed.

Previous titles by Alan Finlay include Burning Aloes (Dye Hard Press, 1994) No Free Sleeping (with Vonani Bila and Donald Parenzee) (Botsotso, 1998) and The Red Laughter of Guns in Green Summer Rain (with Philip Zhuwao), published by Dye Hard Press in 2002. In 2003, he co-edited with Arja Salafranca glass jars among trees, an alternative anthology of poetry and prose, published by Jacana.

He founded and edited the literary publications Bleksem (1994) donga, with Paul Wessels (2000) and was editor of New Coin poetry journal from 2003 to 2007.

No, who by Gary Cummiskey

Victoria Williams: 0067

I was too tired to explain earlier, but I’ll try now:

Woke up yesterday with sore head and sore back and hallucinations all morning – which makes it sound like I had a good night but I just don’t know. Here’s what then happened: I ate some suspicious breakfast cereal and started driving to work. There is mist everywhere. Everywhere is misty. White, practically opaque mist. I can’t exaggerate this mist enough – yes, it was like a blanket.

And the further I go the more I forget about where I am, where I’m going. Things start to appear, such as: dark, deep lake spreading itself across the road in front of me, and illuminated cyclist, who is peddling forwards but seems to be moving backwards towards my bonnet. Honestly, if there is some sort of afterlife, this must be the journey you undertake to prove your worthiness of it. Throughout all of these visions I just closed my eyes and took them as a test of faith and drove right on through.

So eventually and in the end, I’m very disappointed to find myself parking the car at work, and going in and toiling through the day until the mist clears and nothing further happens.