Meet Me at the Intersection - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1925591700 ISBN 13: 9781925591705

Verlag: Fremantle Press, 2018

Inhaltsangabe

Meet Me at the Intersection is an anthology of short fiction, memoir and poetry by authors who are First Nations, People of Colour, LGBTIQA+ or living with disability. The focus of the anthology is on Australian life as seen through each author's unique, and seldom heard, perspective. With works by Ellen van Neerven, Graham Akhurst, Kyle Lynch, Ezekiel Kwaymullina, Olivia Muscat, Mimi Lee, Jessica Walton, Kelly Gardiner, Rafeif Ismail, Yvette Walker, Amra Pajalic, Melanie Rodriga, Omar Sakr, Wendy Chen, Jordi Kerr, Rebecca Lim, Michelle Aung Thin and Alice Pung, this anthology is designed to challenge the dominant, homogenous story of privilege and power that rarely admits 'outsider' voices.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Rebecca Lim is a writer, illustrator, and lawyer based in Melbourne. She is the author of 18 books and has been shortlisted for the Prime Minister's Literary Award, INDIEFAB Book of the Year Award, Aurealis Award, and Davitt Award for YA. Rebecca's work has also been longlisted for the Gold Inky Award and the David Gemmell Legend Award. Ambelin Kwaymullina is an Aboriginal writer and illustrator who comes from the Palyku people of the Pilbara region of Western Australia. She is the author and illustrator of a number of award-winning picture books and a YA dystopian series. Ambelin is a prolific commentator on diversity in children's literature and a law academic at the University of Western Australia.

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Meet Me at the Intersection

By Rebecca Lim, Ambelin Kwaymullina

Fremantle Press

Copyright © 2018 Rebecca Lim and Ambelin Kwaymullina
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-925591-70-5

Contents

Cover Artwork, 
Introduction, 
Ellen van Neerven, 
Graham Akhurst, 
Kyle Lynch, 
Ezekiel Kwaymullina, 
Olivia Muscat, 
Mimi Lee, 
Jessica Walton, 
Kelly Gardiner, 
Jordi Kerr, 
Yvette Walker, 
Melanie Rodriga, 
Rafeif Ismail, 
Omar Sakr, 
Amra Pajalic, 
Wendy Chen, 
Michelle Aung Thin, 
Alice Pung, 
Rebecca Lim, 
Contributor Biographies, 

CHAPTER 1

ELLEN VAN NEERVEN

Ellen van Neerven is an Aboriginal writer and poet who comes from the Yugambeh people of South East Queensland. This story is a work of fiction which is grounded in her perspective as a Queer Black woman. Ellen writes, 'growing up in Brisbane, I've always played and been obsessed with football (soccer) and I love our Aboriginal soccer heroes like Kyah Simon, Lydia Williams and Jada Mathyssen-Whyman.'

Night Feet

The scholarship was due today and Dad wasn't home. If I didn't get the scholarship money I wouldn't be going to the Nationals. I tried turning my back to the window and began finishing my application. Every scrape outside could be him.

Dad didn't have a phone. One day he propped his old Nokia up on a ledge above the creek and got my brother and me to take turns throwing rocks at it. We both missed twice and he grew impatient. Knocked it off the cliff himself.

Hours went by too quickly as I lost time cleaning up the kitchen, heating soup on the stove, thinking he'd return for lunch. It was afternoon, and I was still missing a few lines when I remembered we didn't have a printer and I had a game at 8.30 pm.

I filled my backpack, putting in my unwashed strip, shin pads that had been lying outside on the barbecue, and two bottles of water. Importantly, I had a hair tie and a thin band to push back my fringe. I went back and wrote a hurried last sentence on my application. I finished with the words I love it, but did I? This had felt like the most important thing in the world once, but last night, today, it had all slipped away. What would happen if I didn't get the money to go to Canberra? I had relied on Dad to be home to work out how we'd get the application in; he would have planned how we'd print it. I would have to work it out for myself.

I'd catch the bus to the library in town, because the post office near it closed later than the local one did. I knew, because Mum used to work there.

There were more people outside the library than in, sitting at the café, standing against the walls talking and hooked into the wi-fi. I hurried through the doors, printed my application and went straight out, with minutes left to post it.

It felt familiar, running to the post office just before closing, across the road, under the bridge, past the pubs starting to get busy and noisy. I didn't like running in my thongs, the V slipping between my toes, but I looked straight ahead and tried to think of an end goal. Like I was on the pitch.

The footpath was blocked off a little farther on, but there was no way I was going to cross the road and back again; I'd lose too much time. I dodged some parked cars and stepped over a patch of water that hadn't drained, and got back on the footpath. Ahead of me, a woman dropped a letter in the express post mailbox outside the post office and I wondered if it was already too late. I half-expected the sliding doors not to open. I ran in and looked frantically around for an envelope. The lady behind the counter said, 'Just a letter? Try an envelope from over there, honey.'

Not just a letter, my inner voice insisted, but I listened to her, and into the kind of happy cream decorative envelope you'd use to send photos of your cat to your grandmother — not the most important document of your life — I folded the application. I scribbled the address from a Post-It and handed the envelope to the lady.

'Just this one?'

'Will it be postmarked today?' I blurted.

'Ah, yeah,' she said. 'I just got to push this back.' I watched her keenly as she picked at the mail stamp, clicking the numbers back. I realised that today was the last day of the month, and that the 28th to the 1st was a big leap. She seemed to struggle with it. Mum could have stood there, where the lady's feet were. She changed the date, stamped my envelope, and I paid her.

I had half an hour until the train to the soccer field and I walked back to the café at the library. I ordered myself a coffee. I'd never had coffee before, but after a sleepless night and with the need for a load of energy tonight, I thought it was a good time to start. I did worry about dehydration, but I had two water bottles, and they could be refilled. With Dad's voice, I said, gruffly, 'Cappuccino, thanks'. I ordered it to go, as they looked like they were packing up. I'd be the machine's last kiss. When they handed it to me, I went and sat in the garden, and watched the people. There was a young black man, African, walking around. I admired his red, new-looking sneakers, a pair like the ones I wanted but Dad would never give me. I could hear the beat of his music, see the yellow buds in his ears. He was wearing a white T-shirt and grey jeans. He looked at me. I sculled the coffee, hot and sudden in my throat. My father's habit. Mum always said to him, You burn yourself. You'll have no tastebuds left for my casserole.

The coffee tasted nice, and I already felt less tired. There was a breeze filtering through the garden, caressing my thighs. I chucked the cup in the bin and decided it was time to get changed into my football shorts in the toilets. I stopped for a moment, reopened my bag and took a sip from my water bottle. 'Keep sipping before the game,' Brisbane Roar captain Jade North had said when he came to visit the club. 'Don't gulp.'

I loved North. I rarely had affection for a defender but I loved him because he was a blackfella and a real workhorse. I rested my bag on the slab of concrete on the side of the café. A sitting spot tucked away. This was the corner where I'd had my first kiss, last year, and the feeling of it always returned. I put my bottle down, and the wind picked it up and took it, and it rolled in the direction of the African boy. He caught it easily and handed it back.

'Thanks,' I smiled. 'Crazy wind, hey?'

He nodded. He still had his earphones in but I couldn't hear the music anymore. As I packed my bag up, he took a step closer and said, 'Hey, how you going?'

'Good,' I said. 'And you?'

'Good. Just waiting for friends and that. Where are you from?' he asked.

I half-smiled at the predictability of the question. The easy answer, and what felt true, was to say, 'From here'.

But they always wanted to know more. He didn't buy it, licking his lips.

'My mother's Italian, my father's Aboriginal.'

'Ah,' he said, and repeated it for clarity.

'And where are you from?' I asked. It was only fair.

'I'm from West Africa,' he said, guarded, and of course it was a line from him. What was West Africa?

'What's your name?' he said, looking at me with some sort of understanding.

'Bella. Yours?'

'Akachi,' he mumbled self-consciously.

It took three times to pronounce it properly, but I wanted to. I looked in his eyes.

'I asked because you look different,' he said.

Again, I could have rolled my eyes...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Fremantle Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2018
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1925591700
• ISBN 13: 9781925591705
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 290
• Herausgeber: Lim Rebecca, Kwaymullina Ambelin
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: gpsr@libri.de; gpsr@libri.de; ; Europaallee 1; Bad Hersfeld; 36244; Deutschland