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Elsa is perched upon the edge of a chair by the spacious window of her father’s twelfth floor apartment. She dreams of beautiful aquiline wings and yearns for the shuddering joy of their spread and span.  She is brazenly naked, washed in the sunlit glow of the broad morning sky. She can sit like this for hours. Hardly moving, barely breathing, never feeling cramped or uncomfortable.

With keen, observing eyes she monitors the ant-like flow of pedestrians coming and going on the pavement below. It seems like forever since she too walked in their world. They rush to and from dull, irrelevant places. Obsessed with the mundane trivialities of their lives, unaware of the existence of things beyond their wildest imagining.    

Something catches Elsa’s attention. She cocks her head. Not once do her eyelids blink. She follows a boy of three or four as he hurtles along the pavement with arms open wide. The hood of his red raincoat is up against the drizzle. He splashes through shallow puddles with dazzling yellow boots. His size makes her restless. She shifts from foot to foot.

In the fantasy that unfolds within her head she is swooping down through slate grey clouds to seize him. She imagines the curved hook of razor sharp talons penetrating his soft, pink flesh. She summons visions of swirling vapour rising from a hot stream of gushing blood. Her mouth salivates. The palpitations of her heart cause her to draw a sharp intake of breath.

She presses her head longingly against the cool glass of the window. If she could reach up and touch it she would. But her arms are useless now. Over the past few days they have travelled backwards within their sockets in excruciating movements.  Gradually they have displaced her shoulder blades and now hang limply down the length of her back.

Her fingers bond together, tapering off to a fine, streamlined tip. The coming of wings? The ripening of her renegade dreams? She has read somewhere that the bones of birds are exceptionally light. She wonders if the hollowing of her marrow is occurring at this very minute? She feels incredibly weightless. As if she could soar with ease into the limitless blue. 

Australia and creepy crawlies feature largely in this collection, as do winged beings and, of course, Mr Grim come to do his Reaping in differing ways… And after reading Chris Warner’s Famine you might be giving elevators a miss for a while. 

Contents 

All You Need is Love	Gary Kemble
The Summer Ghost	Richard Smith
The Beetles in My House	Ryan Lambie
The Billabong	Angela Graham
Lights Out	John Morgan
Angels and Oblivion	Ben Langley
Trail of Tears	T. R. Johnstone
Love Thy Spider	Christopher M. Geeson
Pulling Teeth	James Brooks
The Dream of Aquiline Wings	David Turnbull
A Brush With Death	Sandi Sholl
Famine	Chris Warner
Baltic Afternoon	David Hamilton