May 12, 2025Hemat MalakAerodynamic Drag

When Anna, the mum with six kids, called me from the airport to say she was leaving, assuring me it’s true, most of me was horrified—her youngest was four! The other part of me was all awe and star struck and longing. I smelt pineapple—are there pineapples there—so fragrant I could taste it before my tongue, rivers of sweet juice running down my arms, sticky in the impossible sun, but me, who peels prawns with knife and fork, didn’t care. I walked along that beach, sand painting my rivers, painting my body with fuck it all. Seabirds screeched messages from home, but I don’t speak seabird. I adjusted my bikini—my bikini—and walked barefoot with my always-dressed feet, scratching up my pedicure like a wild thing. The rumble of a huge plane rattled the shells in my hand as it passed. The phone at my ear beeped in time with the washer announcing the end of the cycle.