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A collection of original short stories and poetry written by Creative Industries student, at the University of South Australia. Piping Shrike 2018 Cover Art by Toni Walsh Compiled and edited by Steven Pappin. Special mention to Dr Alex Dunkin, English and Creative Writing Lecturer. Produced by Dr Ioana Petrescu, Senior Lecturer, English and Creative Writing. This Edition is a product of the School of Creative Industries, University of South Australia. Publication rights remain with the authors, distribution rights, under agreement, UniSA 2018. Editor’s Notes It has been my absolute pleasure to peruse the fine fruits of creativity farmed by the creative writing students of 2018. Through different writing styles and forms of short stories and poetry, this collection, Perspective, is an exploration of daily life through many different lenses: Millennial pressures, family expectations, social constraints, feeling alone, and many more. Some pieces make mundane life extraordinary, while others have made the unreal become all too real. The poetry is more than vivid colours splashed between narratives. It explores the expression of different views. It has the potential to resonate differently within each of us. Whatever your style, or preference, you are likely to find something that is great for you. Please, take your time and enjoy a change in Perspective. http://unisa.edu.au/education-arts-and-social-sciences/school-of-creative- industries/student-work/piping-shrike/ Steven Pappin Steven Pappin Project Officer – Aboriginal Graduate Position School of Creative Industries University of South Australia Content Anne Jackson Down Any Street Carli Stasinopoulos Don't Look Through The Crack Connor Foley Road Trippin' Dante DeBono Millennial Iliad Kimberley Betts-Smith Breaking Free Emily Spain Flight After Death Freya Jane Markwick-Smith My Poems Genevieve Hudson Unpinned Jack Tilley Feeding the Shrike Jacob Paul Horrock 5 poems Jake Kempster Male I thought I hated Poetry Steven Pappin Twisted and Thorny Jamie Tyner Poems: The Walk & The Choice Luke Sawford Poetry MADISON HART For Publication Aden Burg No Return Jordan Paige Irvine-Creaser Do It Lik’e a Lady Zoe Nash Panthera Leo Patricia Cherono Mang’ira Poems: Rites, Mama & Wedding Georgia Gustard To the Beyond, Violet Orchid (et.al.) R. Liu Bittersweet Window Dressing (& poems) Renee Jade Miller The Price of Acquisition Simone Lowe The Road To Home Jesse Neill Speechless Stephanie Minhoto Evelyn Nathan Walsh The Cynic Courtney Burke Maybe in The Next Life Anne Jackson ______________ Down Any Street: weaving suburban dreams No. 27 – Boggat No.15 – Ms Stimming and son Benjamin No. 13 – The Death of Mrs Parson No. 27 - Roger Bogart - known in the area as Boggat; he rarely leaves the house due to his Neurocutaneous porphyria, a disorder triggered by sunlight. Boggat Boggat fed the body through the window. Then he climbed out and gathered it up, linking his fingers together to gain a bit more strength. The girl was heavy and he was growing weaker, now that night was withering in the grey taint of morning. He didn't have much time till the sun spilled its ugly shade of pink across the clouds. He had to get safely under cover before the sunlight touched his skin, triggering the crawling itch that would quickly swell into blisters, crippling his muscles with pains that would spasm, forcing him to curl up into a tight ball, screaming inside his head. He had to get home. He hadn't been so close to the touch of morning for years. Boggat was usually very careful and stayed locked inside during the day, with the curtains tightly drawn. But over the last three weeks an overwhelming loneliness had filled his thoughts. It had begun with the children outside his window. It sounded like they'd lost a ball. He'd just started working on a matchstick model of a Victorian terrace house and tried to ignore them. He often heard people outside, but he'd stopped looking out, watching, listening, wondering about their lives; they belonged to a different world, one he had no part in. He was just about to glue the end of a matchstick, when the sweetest small voice rose up like a bird startled in the bushes; it called in a lilting melody that reminded him of the voice of his mother. Boggat dropped the stick in the glue and raced to the window. His small telescope jutted through the edge of the heavy curtains. Boggat tilted it towards the footpath and caught a glint of afternoon sun shining in long golden hair. It splintered, beaming into the cold room and his heart skipped; it fluttered like a moth trapped behind a window pane. Quivering in haste his thin fingers fiddled with the small wheel that adjusted the lens, refocusing it, sharpening the view till it revealed each trace of delicate expression that played upon the face of the young girl who was climbing over his low brick fence. Her skin was soft and smooth like cream, with a touch of cherry wiped lightly over the cheek bones. Picking up the jacket she'd draped over the rough bricks, she laughed with a light tinkling rise that fell on Boggat's ears like petals blown off a blossom tree, then ran across the road into the house directly across from his. As she vanished behind her front door the space around him grew a little darker. He looked around at the room. The wallpaper had begun curling away from the joins, leaving the wall behind coarsely mottled with flaking, crusty glue and a damp shadow stained the corner of the ceiling were the roof had leaked. There was a worn patch on the rug around the table that he'd placed in the centre of the room, directly under the light bulb. He sat there every day building his intricate models but he’d never noticed the worn flooring before, or the thick sheet of dust that covered all the other furniture in the room. Boggat's stomach began to feel queasy. He felt ill and empty and his throat tightened; he swallowed but his mouth was dry. Strength drained from his arms till he could hardly hold the telescope still. He couldn't move, his legs felt dead beneath him; just useless struts, like rotten wood they barely held him up. The loneliness flowed through him like a gnawing hunger grinding in his stomach. He craved to go outside, touch the girl, hear her laugh and feel the sun's warmth glowing in her hair. Boggat watched the house across the road every day for the next three weeks. Through the girl's bedroom window he saw her lying on the bed on her stomach, with her feet waving in the air; he laughed, thinking they were waving at him. He saw that she always left her window open a bit. He got up early to watch her run down the street in the morning, her shiny black leather shoes tapping the pavement as her school bag bounced against her clean white shirt, and her short dark blue skirt frilled out, dancing around her long legs. On the weekends he watched her playing with her friends. He noted the tall hedge that grew along the side of her house, dividing it from the next and the thick, stumpy book-leaf pine that grew beside her window. He saw her parents go out each Tuesday night at 6pm and watched her wave them good- bye. He knew they were gone for three hours, no less, no more; the girl was always left alone. On the Tuesday night that Boggat chose to cross the road, the street was quiet by 7. The moon had barely risen and only a few stars glittered like specks of silver in the slate black sky. He stepped out the side door of his house and stood with his back pressed against the cool bricks of the wall. The lights were sparse in this section of the street and a dark space filled the stretch of road between his house and hers. He looked down the street, first one way, then the other. Only a few fallen leaves were moving, they rustled in the warm breeze. Boggat slipped quickly across the road, into the gloom of the hedge in the young girls front yard, then he crept along to the pine outside her window and slid behind it. Slipping his hands through the small gap under the window's edge he pushed it cautiously up. It slid easily in the frame, making no sound. Hoisting himself up onto the ledge, he slipped over the edge into the darkness. Boggat's heart pounded in his ears. He crouched below the window holding his head till the rhythmic thumping quietened. As his eyes adjusted to the lack of light, the outline of the bedroom door emerged. He could hear music playing somewhere in the house. Boggat wove his way between the clothes and books that were scattered over the floor and turned the door handle. He poked his head out and saw a light at the end of the hallway. Digging in his pocket for the cloth bag he had made, he sauntered down the hall. He felt more confident now he was inside; inside with her. The girl was sitting on a low couch with her back to the door and her phone in her hand, her hair shining in the electric light glowing above her. Pop music blared from the TV, that took up half the wall. Boggat crept up behind the couch and pulled the bag down over the girl's head, yanking the drawstring tight.

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