Anthony was awake before the alarm. The volume was set to maximum, or so his grandson told him. But he could never quite catch the sound; just a muted buzz like a mosquito above his head. Sometimes it was louder when he forgot to take his hearing-aid out before bed. That had happened more and […]
The Quarry Journal
A journal of creative writing by students at Macquarie University
Bipolar Disorder: One Woman’s Story, Francesca Tichon
I’ve grown up around mental illness. My mum worked as a teacher’s aide in a class of severely mentally disabled children when I was a kid, and my sister and I would often spend Take-Your-Daughter-To-Work days there. To us, the kids were funny and harmless, often pretending to be tigers or elephants and playing silly […]
When Adam Found God Under the Kitchen Sink, Toby Wools-Cobb
From certain books in the cathedral, came the idea of the boy. The old man walked to and from each of the bookcases that circled the room and withdrew books, flicked through the pages, thought through the words, and then returned them to their place. He then sat at his table, took his pen and […]
Pieces Apart, Shannon Baker
The photograph sat in a wooden frame on the foyer table. It showed my family, standing in a park by the beach. Even then Alice appeared fragile, like she could blow away in the wind. Mum smiles, content and relaxed in loose white linen pants and a kaftan. I’m wearing a short white dress, squinting […]
Broken Lines, Christopher Suffield
The ward was quiet as shards of light shone between the blinds. They cast rectangles of brightness against the grey linoleum floor. A continuous, methodical beeping sounded from the only occupied bed in the room. It was accompanied by the soft puff and whirr of a respirator. Wires and tubes ran from the patient to […]
Joshua & 1000 Words, two works, Aidan Wondracz
Joshua static – The difference between a man with religion and a man without is that the man with religion spends his life fulfilling a purpose whilst the other spends his life searching for one. follow this road: rugged and rude/ joshua and adem rattle along. dawn brightening to azure day/ falling ochre/ settling […]
Nicki, Vivienne Psaila
I have a black and white photo of Nicki. Not some digital wish wash but the actual thing, one that I can hold in my hands and rip up if I want to. He’s hunched over the kitchen table scribbling into his notepad smoking a cigarette. He didn’t know I was taking the picture. He […]
Burdens, Olivia Whenman
DAMON HILTON Constable Derrin was standing behind me whilst I was on the phone. In high school we used to call him Herc the Lurk. ‘I love you baby. Please! I won’t do anything like this again. Please baby. Don’t hang up! Don’t hang up!’ But she hung up. I turned around in defeat. I […]
Greyhound, Jeff Thomson
The silver dog streaks through the day and through the night. Traversing hundreds of miles of interstate highways, moving the huddled masses yearning to breathe free. A symbol of the ideals of meritocracy that modern America was built on; the maligned who ride these buses bring with them a ragged sense of hope. The […]
Outburst, Charlotte Marsh
As I sit in Doctor Malone’s office I start to laugh. She doesn’t really appreciate my jokes but silence always has a way of making me really tense. It’s all textbook to her; I make jokes in order to avoid confrontation. To be fair I’m only half kidding. I do genuinely feel bad for Malone, […]