August 2011
2 posts
One hundred and one : hum
So much space
silence—or what passes for silence
in the suburbs at night.
Sirens in the distance.
Refrigerator hum.
Wind.
Rain.
The creak of settling foundations.
But still, true silence is here.
It lies, as always, to my left,
where no breath,
no murmur of sleep,
no rustle of sheets is heard.
A place reserved for a protector
who has never shown himself.
It’s funny...
July 2011
2 posts
five pieces you should read
These are the five posts I am most proud of. Some a quite short, but this was never a place for publishing epic fiction… enjoy!
Emergency
The Wild Boy
Isolation
A Garden
Newborn
If you have any topic requests or questions or opinions or a good recipe for chai, send an email to acircadianrhythm@gmail.com and I’ll get back to you.
- Cassi H.
3 tags
one hundred : write when it strikes (it won't...
take out that pen put it to use
that one two eight thousand word work of art (if it even starts) won’t write itself
it might live as a bud in the mind for years
but every rise and set is back burning a forest of poetry reduced to ash floating
you can try again and again to bring it back the way it was
write it in a year
plant each new word a seed to grow a new forest still green...
five pieces you should read
These are the five posts I am most proud of. Some a quite short, but this was never a place for publishing epic fiction… enjoy!
Emergency
The Wild Boy
Isolation
A Garden
Newborn
If you have any topic requests or questions or opinions or a good recipe for chai, send an email to acircadianrhythm@gmail.com and I’ll get back to you.
- Cassi H.
October 2010
2 posts
1 tag
ninety-nine : dust on the ground
Late in the evening, Lorena finds herself staring out through the living room window into the shifting shadows of the garden. She feels the presence of something beyond what she can see. She is certain that the others must feel it too, and as she turns an ear to the hallway she hears a soft murmur roll through the house, as though each sleeping soul had at once drifted to the furthest edges of...
2 tags
ninety-eight : to dream of rising water
She awoke in the night with an aching need to see the ocean. Her heart quavered with the need for it. She felt it calling her, and somehow, suddenly, it was all there was, all there ever could be.
She felt as though she would burst into flame unless she saw it, and so, beneath the pale orange dome of the city’s night sky, Hannah ran until her lungs burned, then with wild eyes and jelly...
May 2010
2 posts
ninety-seven : a nightmare, a dream
She spent the day feeling imaginary. As though she was something less tangible than mist. Less memorable than the air or electricity. Those things would at least leave an impression. Damp skin, cool breeze, a sharp, hot shock.
But she left nothing. Not even a sense of absence.
Her heart was a void, and she had slowly collapsed into it until there was nothing left.
ninety-six : possession
Will had finally started drifting off when a sharp knock at the door pulled him back to the 70’s wallpaper of his motel room. He shuffled to the door and looked through the brass-rimmed peephole. A middle aged woman stood in the flickering light outside. She wore a name tag, the same as the woman at the motels reception desk. Diane. He flicked on the light and opened the door.
...
March 2010
2 posts
ninety-five : made of smoke
I exhale, and he speaks slowly. Low. Almost under his breath. I feel the warmth of it on my neck. His lips are bristling-close. I stare straight up. Smoke curls around itself, through itself, moving in circles to the ceiling. The harder I try to see it, the more it dissolves, swallowed by the air. He is speaking, still. Theres an urgency in his voice, though it is quiet, and his hands tell me what...
Ninety-Four : A Garden
The air here is heavy. It takes my breath and holds it up before me in little white clouds. I watch the clouds float and hope they wont carry on the breeze beyond the leaves and betray my hiding place. Here at the bottom of the garden it is dirty and damp and dark. But it is safe here, in this place usually reserved for spiders and beetles and mice. Glossy green leaves above me still drip with...
February 2010
1 post
ninety-three : gummi bears (part two)
I was thirteen, and suddenly I had no friends.
Mid way through my final year of primary school, my parents decided to move, and the next year they had sent me to the secondary college closest to our new house. Being so young, this separation from my two best friends of the preceding six years was difficult to stop. Though we still lived in neighbouring towns, it felt as though we were much...
December 2009
7 posts
ninety-two : the aurora
i open my atlas. my thumb traces a mountain range and i picture light leaks in the sky. the aurora. it’s so far away. somewhere with space and snow and silence. here it is loud and hot and crowded. the sky is low and heavy. i wonder how anyone can think straight with the sky bearing down on them like this.
absence
i’m sorry. i missed a day, and then another, and then time just snowballed. i will try to resume my daily posts…
ninety-one : a new take on gravity
here we are on a rock floating through space. the ground is soft beneath our feet. way beyond, under the soles of our shoes, the earths core is hot and churning. on the other side, someone else digs their heels into the dirt. you feel the connection. they are your polar opposite. they keep you grounded.
i might do something more with this concept. for now, am going to go to bed. my focus is yet to...
ninety : gummi bears (part one)
it’s funny how looking back, it’s possible to trace all you have become to one single defining moment. one thing that changed everything.
for a lot of people, it seems to be a particular piece of music. a holiday they took. a teacher they had in school. an accident, a near miss. they have an experience and something changes.
but for me, it wasn’t a song. it wasn’t a place...
eighty-nine : quiet
the chairs are empty. the room is dark, silent save for the clink of metal on china. the plate seems to empty itself. she pushes it back over the table and stares at her hands.
water fills the sink. steam rises. the cat slinks out from the loungeroom and winds itself around her ankles. the phone rings. she ignores it.
ughhhhh. i’m not getting anywhere with this tonight. so so tired....
eighty-eight : clocks
six clocks are ticking. each one is slightly out of time with the others, so that every second is divided six ways into tiny mind-splitting clicks. i try to drown them out. but the more i try, the more i hear them. one is more than just a click. it has a whirring gear sound underneath it. it seems louder than bombs.
sorry i haven’t been very consistent recently. stressed out by my dayjob.
November 2009
26 posts
eighty-seven : shed your love
The feeling drops, sliding from you like a winter coat. It is no longer soft and warm. It began that way, but with time it grew heavy and stifling. And now that it’s gone you shiver. You want it back, even the heaviness.
This is proof. Now you know for sure. There is no happy medium.
eighty-six : the hands
The room was mostly dark, but through the broken window was the faint pink glow of dawn. Sierra had barely moved all night. She had fallen asleep with her head on Eli’s shoulder, and he waited until it was a little brighter before he woke her with a shake. Instinctively, she jerked away, then felt a wave of panic as she remembered where she was.
‘He’ll be here soon.’
...
eighty-five : electric
Sal had been waiting for something to happen. The final week of September seemed to buzz with static, like the air before lightning. He had sensed it, though no-one else seemed to. There was definitely something there. At first, it was dull, and the sensation seemed to slip past him like a shadow that vanished as soon as he tried to focus on it. But as the days went on, it became stronger, more...
eighty-four : trust
His only mistake was trusting the kid. In another town, another state, it probably wouldn’t have made a difference, but here it was the difference between a long life and an early death.
Mike was meant to be babysitting. But the kid was already 15. They had an arrangement. Mike would be at the house at 6, stick around until his Aunt left, then head down the road to the pub. The band he...
eighty-three : alien hand syndrome
She had been walking for hours, drifting in and out of consciousness but found herself still walking every time she woke. The first time she blacked out was in the motel parking lot. She regained consciousness 20 minutes later on the side of the main road. Again, on a side street. A dirt track. This time, she was surrounded by dense gums. Big, smooth rocks were scattered amongst the rain-soaked...
eighty : revenge
hannah stands in the kitchen of her parents house, her heart still racing from the argument. she listens to the heavy stomp of feet nearly going through the floorboards as her sister storms upstairs, then the familiar screech and clunk of the shower being turned on. a few seconds pass. her sister closes the bathroom door. a few more seconds. long enough, she thinks.
she walks to the sink and...
eighty-two : vera jones
Vera wasn’t fooling anyone. Not that there were many people left to fool. She pretended that nothing had ever happened, but even senile old Marty Gale in the room down the hall could tell she was hiding something.
In her younger years, she had considered telling someone. But she hadn’t known what to tell. Any way she looked at it, the whole story sounded crazy. If she had just said...
seventy-nine : stuck
if it weren’t for the heat he’d think he was in limbo. he sleeps. he wakes. he eats. he works. the day disappears, then the night. but time drags. weeks race by, then time stands still. everywhere he looks are conflicting signs. some point up, some down. each claim to be the right way. the truth. nothing makes sense anymore.
i don’t know what to say about this. i still can’t focus. i...
seventy-eight : balloons
in the dark we walked with our arms entwined stumbled across white dotted lines weighing each other down. if we had separated we would have been sent twisting and tumbling into the sky like two lost balloons.
i can’t think straight. boo.
Seventy-seven : want
Black trees stand like matchsticks all around the van. I listen to the music echo, watch the distant bonfire flicker. I’m drunk, or I was. Walking through the thick mud I nearly fell more times than I can count. But suddenly I feel stone cold sober, though I know I mustn’t be. By the fire, the party goes on. I lay in the dark and wait for time to pass. All I can smell is smoke. All I...
seventy-six : Edgar
He hated holidays. As soon as the school year was over the parties would start, and the dances, and the concerts, and everything else. All of them were just excuses for the young people of the town to get out of their houses and into the streets. The narrow country roads swelled like rivers, overflowing with bulletproof kids piled into their parents cars. At least, they thought they were...
seventy-five : to be lost in the forest
To Whoever You Are.
When you woke up this morning, what did you feel? I hope it was an unexplained sense of anticipation, because surely the yellow envelope sitting on your train seat would have set your heart racing if that was the case. Life really can be like a movie sometimes.
It is likely that there were other people sitting here before you who chose to leave my letter untouched and...
seventy-four : orange sherbert
after hours they emerge from the woodwork. no-one sees them. no-one except henry, but he keeps quiet. he stands in the shadows and watches them melt into existence. they move silently through the dark in groups. a noise comes and they scatter like beetles.
tonight i’ve been listening to the black ghosts. i’m feeling weird. unsettled. a little lost. tomorrow night is my last class for the year. i...
seventy-three : choke chain
bloodshot eyes, slow-melting ice. a cliche crawls from the bartenders disinterested lips. all i see are his hands squeaking an old towel over a wet beerglass. theres no smokehaze, not anymore. just soundhaze. headhaze. eyehaze. nothing external to cloud the mind, but it’s clouded anyway. something shifts. the squeaking glass is too loud. louder than the crowd. it echoes in my skull.
a...
seventy-two : the brothel
i was barely nineteen. i walked along a road between factories and mechanics, my heels kicking up water as i went. rain was ice cold. it fell in sheets. my hair was soaked, my clothes stuck to me. as i walked up the narrow driveway a man was pulling out in an expensive car. he stopped and smiled and let me pass.
the building had a sign on the front, but i didn’t read it. instead i went straight...
seventy-one : no need for lights
Chloe slips on the wet pavement as they leave the club, and she grabs on to Jakes arm and looks down as she regains her balance. Headlights and tail lights and traffic lights are mirrored on the slick ground, like another world below their feet. Music echoes out into the street, drowning out the sound of thunder. The night has only just begun. People stand along the wall in twos and threes like...
seventy : an unwanted perspective
we waste the year waiting for the summer, we watch the paint drying on the walls, we spend our days wishing they were over, nothing to do, nothing at all, nothing at all.
all the machines are spinning round in circles, but they dont mind, they know it so well, we shake our heads and tell ourselves it’s awful, but we’re the same, we’re just as small, we’re just as small.
i...
sixty-nine : three month breakdown
our voices they unfold, repeat the words i sold, you know i never wanted this. i’ll wait another day, and never see things change, the only difference is the date. oh i know that we will never be again, oh i know that we will never see the end, together, i know that we will never be again, what i know now will just break us down. you know that talk is cheap, and you tell me everything, your...
sixty-eight : this mess we're in
she’s not alone here, but her voice is. it echoes in the room, down the hall, out the door and into the street. he stands by the window, always looking out into the green. it’s cool outside and dew gathers in the lush garden, along the length of each leaf, every petal. inside it is dry and empty. dust floats in the air, the motes visible in the bright light that filters through the...
sixty-seven : midnight
The sun is rising somewhere, but here the night stretches out to both horizons. The pale orange glow in the house is the only light for miles, and it is diffused through the fogged glass. Inside, hot water drips from the roof, down the walls, pooling on the floor below. In thick clouds of steam, pressed up against the glass door of the shower, is a splotchy pink hand.
The water has been running...
sixty-six : negative space
things deteriorate fast.
the first time, it was no big deal. a short-lived fling that ended naturally when the list of things we had in common didn’t grow beyond us both being 17 years old.
the second time was harder. we were young and we were drunk. fooling around on the couch at a friends place after a party. though i knew i wanted him and he wanted me, it was too soon and i said no. he...
sixty-five : slam
In the grey light of morning he sits in the parking lot. Tiny birds swoop and dart around him. He watches them warily for a moment before sliding off the hood of the car and walking to the edge. Looking out over the street below he sees the people of the city moving like ants. Behind him, the birds chatter endlessly. He tries to shut them out, switch it off. They don’t stop. It’s too...
sixty-four : numbers
he wakes up at two forty-seven. zero two four seven. zero plus two plus four is six… plus seven is thirteen. thirteen. one three. one plus three is four. go back to sleep. he lays back down and stares hard at the dark ceiling. ellie rolls over beside him and lets out a slow breath. from the corner of his eye he sees a shift of light as the glowing green numbers change. his lips move...
sixty-three : breathe
If I were being honest, I’d say a lot less. Lies take more words to feel real. Lies need more proof, more information to survive. Lies need details like oxygen. Even though this isn’t so much a lie as it is an omission, an avoidance of truth, it still makes me want to fill each living moment with more backstory, more evidence. But all this is, this whole paragraph, this whole page, all...
sixty-two : smoke
They argued about it almost daily, and it nearly always ended the same. He would light his next cigarette with the end of the last one, and Diane would stop yelling and shake her head.
‘For me. Lyle. Please? You’ve gotta quit, love. You really do.’
‘Over my dead body’ he’d rasp, and Diane would purse her lips and turn back to the TV, glaring into the...
sixty-one : the death of christmas
Mia sat in the front passenger seat, eating the layers of an orange and white striped licorice allsort, one at a time.
I reached for the bag of party mix on the console and she pushed it forward, just out of reach. Mum smacked her hand and held the bag out to me, watching in the rearview to make sure I only took one. I dug around for a green jelly, but ended up with a red snake. The holy grail of...
October 2009
32 posts
sixty : crackle
Broken bricks stick out of the wet earth. Red bricks. Black earth. Bright grass. Water clings to each blade. The sky is wide and overcast, and though the rain has stopped, lightning flashes through the dark undersides of clouds. Hannah sits on the grass, the rainwater soaking through her jeans, and stares up into the electric sky. Her skin prickles.
fifty-nine : in a hotel room
A man is calling my name. Someone else’s name, probably, but just in case I walk outside and stand on the balcony. Waves crash, invisible in the dark, they crash. I see a light on in another hotel room, in another hotel. Nobody stands in the parking lot. I wait a moment for the person to call out again, but they don’t. I walk back inside.
In the room, I put on some music. When...
fifty-eight : take on me
Words stutter and stop, hang in bubbles, then burst and are gone forever. The silence that follows is louder than bombs. I don’t know what else to say, but I try. I try too hard. I scramble to find a new topic, a new direction. But my words sound forced, scripted. I get self-conscious. I fall silent, and there is no coming back. Give up I think. Don’t give up. I never listen to myself....
fifty-seven : lightning bloom
It’s suddenly 6 o’clock, and the phone is ringing. Zach wanders into the kitchen to answer it while I turn on the TV and flick through the stations. I’m still channel surfing when Zach rushes back into the room and picks up his keys.
“We have to go.”
I look over my shoulder at him.
“What? What’s happened?”
His face is pale and his voice comes out scared and small.
“It’s Sheena....
fifty-six : higher
Light burns into paper. Chemical fumes hang in the air, a dark curtain. The fan hums, the drier clicks, spitting out sheet after sheet after sheet. A teenage girl with earphones in sits cross-legged on the floor beside it, her head in a cloud as she picks up the dried prints. She blows smoke onto the surface of one picture and watches it spread out like a rolling fog before putting it to one side....
fifty-five : hold on
Her fingertips found his upturned wrist in the dark space beside her. She traced over the warmth of his palm and linked her fingers between his. There was no electric spark. They touched, but they just touched. Her brow furrowed. No moving earth or rush of blood to the head. No giddy stomach, no butterflies, no trumpets.
Later, when their lips touched in the dark she waged a war on her heart,...
4 tags
fifty-four : dark shines
The change in road surface is audible as she takes the off ramp to the airport. Cold air blows in through the vents, though she is certain she closed them, and she wonders why his hand isn’t in its usual place, resting on her knee. She glances at him from the corner of her eye and adjusts her grip on the steering wheel. He is staring out the window.
At the airport, she opens the back door...