UNSW’s ADAsoc Creative Tournament Winners!
This year, the team at Voiceworks and Express Media was pleased to partner with UNSW’s Arts, Design, and Architecture Society (ADAsoc) to support the ADAsoc Creative Tournament — Storytelling Competition (ACT). ACT was judged in part by Voiceworks edcommer Faye Tang, with categories for fiction and poetry.
The winner in fiction is ‘Within These Walls’ by Tara Chau (@books_bytara on Instagram). Tara Chau is a 3rd year Bachelor of Arts student with a major in Creative Writing.
The winner in poetry is ‘What I Poured Out’ by Ashlee Amer (@craftysalad_ on Instagram). Ashlee Amer is a 2nd year Arts (Sociology and English Double Major) and Education (Secondary) student.
Read both pieces in full below!
Within These Walls
Tara Chau
My three favourite things on this Earth are:
Black crows. With beady eyes, if that’s an option. And glossy wings that reflect the sunlight (she read that crows are not only a symbol of doom, but a pillar of filial piety).
Chopsticks. When they’re wooden. When careless mortals leave them standing in their rice (she heard that chopsticks left upright resemble incense at a shrine, beckoning the deceased).
The number four. Pronounced sì. Not to be mistaken for sǐ. But close enough (she was taught that the Chinese pronunciation of four was strikingly close to the pronunciation of ‘death’. She always skips it when counting aloud).
It is rare to see all three things collected by one household. But if it were to be any home in this city, it would be this one. White brick walls climbing with grey measles of mould. A dark hallway that flickers with red light from the grand shrine at the end of the way. And silence.
Inside the walls, a family of three. A grandfather, grandmother, and the first granddaughter. The old man has dementia. The old woman has regrets. And the young woman has to bear them both.
On slower days, when the rain ushers people safely indoors, and the flu is finished with her frolicking, I visit the house for fun. The granddaughter is grand company, like a friend under your arm. You know where her aches and sore points are, poking them in glee. She is unlike my usual acquaintances (clientel), her lips are pale from the sick walls, and her hair is smattered with dandruff she picks from her scalp (she is trying to break this habit. She sniffs under her nails and exhales the scent of oil and dry shampoo). Yet, she lives at a pace much too quick to catch, vibrating at a frequency different to her family. The house is merely a bed, a place for her to rest her ankle blisters before slipping away in the morning. When her grandfather wakes, he complains of her absence, and I agree, counting the measles on the wall.
When she’s away, I’m not sure where she goes. I can’t trace her beyond the silt of her grandfather, can’t grasp her through the sludge of his nonenal. Sometimes, I daydream that she feels me. She can hear my footsteps on the floorboards and she feels guilty when she leaves.
She’s back! Sunset is arrogant today, greedy as it drinks her attention through the cracks of white in an orange sky, grinning as she lingers at the threshold for as long as she can. She hasn’t stopped for you, I grumble. But eventually, she enters, and I sigh in satisfaction. She feels it like the breeze (she gets cold in this place far too often, but she blames it on the walls and shuts the windows).
The granddaughter lowers herself into her chair at the dinner table. She glances at her grandfather, eyes tracing the space around him for signs of my approach, finger smudges or bites. The old newspaper whispers on the table as she lays it out. It’s crinkled by age and thin from soups long spilt. Mama drops a dish of fried egg into the centre, turning away in silence to collect the meat.
“Gong, how was your day?” The young woman smiles, placing a pair of chopsticks across his bowl.
Your day was long. I can see it in the grey bags that hang under your red eyes, peeking through your split concealer.
“It was good”, he replies, smiling over the rim of his rice bowl. There's white slime gathering in the creases of his grey eyes. Mama looks away, repulsed. “I go my morning exercise. I walk around oval five times! Very healthy,” he nods to himself.
He walked it four times. I watched. He took a long time. Longer each time. Tougher each time.
The family eats in silence for a while. Gong rises from his seat, pottering off down the hall, whistling. Mama hates it when he whistles. It grates on her eardrums and burrows too deeply for her to scrape away. If only she reached just a millimetre deeper, she’d scratch some of that grief. She’d sleep a bit easier.
The young woman reaches across the table, removing his chopsticks from where they stand upright in the centre of his bowl, placing them firmly across the rim. I’m disappointed. I like it when they stand like incense. Like the ones at the shrine a few steps away (she hates the days mama prays. The low mechanical drone of the ancient radio chants like it’s alive).
We watch Gong return. He moves as slowly as a snail, I swear. Although snails are quick to Death. Squished or pecked, or dried up in the sun. Or eaten by crows! Black ones with quick beady eyes.
“What did you do today?” Gong asks his granddaughter, reaching for his second egg as he sits.
She shrugs, rolling her neck to the right and left before answering. “I studied.”
Boring (necessary).
“I walked. Four times around the oval!”
Correct (really?).
“It’s very cold today.” She answers, switching the conversation before his inevitable fourth retelling invites me to sit at the table. By his side.
Perhaps I should take a peek outside. This dinner is no different to any of the others, and I see her getting uncomfortable. She’s much faster at noticing me and it might have something to do with how loud I am, fingers drumming on the kitchen counter and all.
Gong reminds her to put on more layers as I slip through the back door. In the night, his grey sweats hang from the line, limp and loose. They sighed from his frame this morning, and they hang their heads in the breeze tonight. I suppose they’re tired, after all these years. He’s truly worn them down. I’m tempted to liberate them, snatch the cloth from the pink pegs. May they rest in peace in the red bin (she hopes Gong won’t fish them out). But I don’t (oh well). That’s not why I’m here. And they’ll sleep soon enough.
I leave the yard, walking onto the street where the moon performs her usual lilting tune, outshining the stars. I’ve told her often to humble herself. Give them longer than a day or two to smile before she smothers them once more. But she’s historically arrogant and won’t listen. Especially tonight, where her white beams paint the darkness in a grainy grey. I pass a row of cars, all of their windows fogged up from the heat inside. I guess it is cold. A small fingertip has traced a heart in the passenger side of a red hatchback, and I wonder why they never draw sculls or graves, or chopsticks or crows (hearts last much longer than death).
“I walked the oval six times today. One extra than usual. Very healthy.”
I roll my eyes. There he goes, and there she answers. Although from outside, I can’t hear her response. I’m sure it's the same as usual (She answers, the same as usual).
You always humour him. You never let the exhaustion or frustration or guilt or grief show. You should buy a new concealer.
He will soon say his fourth iteration of the oval story. I should hurry and decide whether or not to stay for it. I can only count so many fours before I claim them for myself. If I move on to the red-roofed house three streets down, he’ll beckon me to return by tomorrow morning. Although fire is much faster than dementia, I could make it. My legs are getting tired. The crow hasn't arrived yet. I’ll come back. Give them tonight.
I’m so kind.
(Thank you)
What I Poured Out
Ashlee Amer
I never have liked drinking water
The flavourless taste
It never stays still on my tongue
and it makes me feel sick after each
Sip
Like something my body refuses to accept
Never having a thirst to
Quench
Year 1
I remember
Every afternoon I would put my hand up in the last 5 minutes of class
“Miss, please can I go to the bathroom!”
My voice always too quick
too rehearsed
too certain
I would tip out my whole un-touched water bottle down the toilet
Watching it spiral clockwise
Like something leaving me, without consequence
The sound of it disappearing
Was quieter than I expected
I smiled all the way home
And told my mum I had drunk every drop
As if truth was just repetition
As if saying it made it real
she believed me
or chose to
Year 4
At my best friend's house, a typical playdate
I never had a Barbie doll, but seeing all of the beautiful dresses and shoes
each of her dolls were wearing, I couldn't help but nick one on my way out
A small theft that fit inside my palm
A little denim jacket, incredibly detailed with gold-painted buttons and white stitching along the cuffs
A small prize for my own dollhouse
She asked me at school, where that jacket was
The question sat between us like how I held water on my tongue too long
I said I hadn’t seen it
Oblivious
In year 5
I was only allowed to paint outside
I remember standing in the courtyard with a huge, thick brush
Sloshing it against the canvas, liquid
Colour too loud for the space it was in
Though, curiosity overtook me and I span around, arms wide
as if I could empty myself into the air
As the paint flew off the brush, splattering everywhere, opaque
Against the glass pool fence
Against the Tuscan tiled floor
Along mum’s monstera plant
Everything I touched became evidence
My confession was concealed
The colours dried instantly where they landed
like something that couldn’t be taken back
No one spoke at first
So I didn’t either
When choosing high schools, in the final weeks of Year 6
My mother assumed I was going to the selective girls school
known for extensive academics and a strong focus on curriculum
on order
on clarity
on things that don’t spill
My father and I had other plans
I wanted to go to the same school he went to!
I wanted to be with my best friends!
We spoke quietly after dinner, hiding in the office downstairs
As if naming anything too loudly would alter it
Or that she would hear
We secretly, quickly, shakily signed the papers
quietly, sorting it under her understanding
Relief washed over me
Everything unspilled
Until the first day of Year 7
I remember
Leaving the house in the local uniform
A blouse too big, in the school colours that my father had worn too
Fabric stiff like a decision still forming
Her voice at the doorframe, growing louder as she put pieces together
My bus already waiting
I kept walking
quicker, head down
As if moving forward could hold what I hadn’t said
As if nothing would leak backwards
And even now
I still don’t know
what was true
and what I only ever poured out