‘Have you been speaking to the police?’ Amina stood in the foyer of the station house, holding the phone a few centimetres from her ear to compensate for the shouting. Around her, uniformed police officers came and went. Others sat across from ashamed individuals, filling out wide charge sheets in carbon papered triplicate. To […]
The Quarry Journal
A journal of creative writing by students at Macquarie University
Ketchup, Evangeline Hester
‘Did you know that a fifth of the world’s ketchup comes from Xinjiang?’ ‘Mmph?’ Jonah’s mouth was full of hamburger. ‘Ketchup,’ Abigail repeated, ‘a fifth of it is from Xinjiang.’ Jonah swallowed. ‘Huh.’ He took another bite. When she was thirteen, in the second term of her new school in Australia, Abigail wrote a play […]
Mornings with Doves, Judith Mendoza-White
When José María opened his eyes to the new morning, he knew this would not be an ordinary day. Apprehension tightened his eyelids as he snoozed the alarm, struggling to face the dim light of the early autumn sun and dismiss the irrational foreboding that kept him curled up under the blankets. The ominous feeling […]
Fenced In, Mykayla Castle
The phone call shouldn’t be such a damn struggle. Your mobile sits on table, placid as anything, open to your contacts and waiting for a single tap. Earlier this morning, you climbed onto your kitchen counter to reach a glass on the top shelf. Right now, you aren’t sure you can bring yourself to raise […]
Border Crossing, Pooja Biswas
I set out on a pilgrimage over the northern plains of ice-steeped grass and stones round as knuckles, breezes sharp as kite strings. so far from the sea was I & yet so near to the sky, the clouds hovering like small parachutes, descending bodies […]
No Woman’s Land, Teresa Peni
There were no spaces left to lay down on the grass, so quite a few ladies sunbathed on the rocks that circled the women’s sea pool, like lizards, like litter, like a colony of seals. Their luminous arses wreathed the giant sandstones. I looked at them and thought, I was twenty-something, once. I debated taking […]