MIA-FRANCESCA MCAUSLAN

Naarm Melbourne / Events Manager

Currently working from home.

Mia-Francesca McAuslan is a writer from Far North Queensland. She is the Wheeler Centre’s Events Manager, and Co-Founding Editor of Lor Journal.

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I make a mental note — when someone attacks, do something bizarre. The unexpected will scare them away. I’m constantly losing my brother. Or gripping the hand of someone I love. The line between me and them is now drawn deeper into the soft, billowy sand. They shape shift, and now it is an ex-friend, someone I am constantly trying to reconcile with. Why don't I just do this in real life? She is sitting on a park bench and she looks the way she always looked, downy and freckled, and then, she is an owl. We are both birds, in a momentary minute of panic. Another ex tells me he has a girlfriend now and I roll my eyes, like yeah right, she will never be your real girlfriend. That would be me. It is time to die. I am being coaxed towards a bright, white star, forced into its blinding heat. Even my mother is in on it, encouraging me into the furnace. As I get closer to my death I realise that there will be pain, and I don't want to do it. But it is too late. Not too late to get out physically, but too late to renege. That would lack integrity, and besides, for some reason, we’re all doing it — wandering towards this blinding, white end. Clearing the cache and starting again.