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they came innot with jackbootsbut spreadsheets;clean lines,quiet shoes,PhD mouths. no one voted.they just arrivedlike mouldon bread left outduring a heatwaveof apathy. they said:"democracy was too slow,too stupid,too full of youruncle’s opinions." they weren’t wrong. I saw a man eat a lightbulbon Facebookfor likesand then askif COVID was real. so now the machines buzzand the men in vestssip proteinand solve societylike it's a maths problemwith no remainder. they smilelike dentistsbefore the drill. they call it"Technocratic Caesarism";like that's meant to soundbetterthan"you shut up nowand we’ll do the thinking." they send me alertson how to feel,when to sleep,how much waterto drinkbefore I earn the rightto masturbate. they tell meit’s efficient. and it is.the buses runon time.the pigeons salute.even my neighbour's dogstopped barkingand enrolledin a coding bootcamp. but I missthe ugliness.I misssome fat bastardin a pubyelling aboutthe moon landingwith meat pieon his lipand madnessin his eye. now all the madnesshas beenoptimised. I livein a pod.eatin cubes.lovethrough filters.dieon a timelinemonitoredby a man named Kylewho thinks “stoicism”is a mood settingon his Fitbit. you will live,they say,like datain a vault;safe,silent,sorted. you will like it,they say,you peasant,because it will hurt lessthan thinking. and maybe they’re right. but I keep a packof smokesand a dirty poemin the drawer just in casethe grid goes darkand the poetsgetone moreround. F.S.F.

Technocratic Caesarism

Let me first say that I'm usually not inclined to share stories that end with me being punched out by a midget. Not because I’m embarrassed, though, to be fair, who wouldn’t be, but because any time I’ve tried telling it, people are sure I am making things up. I can hardly blame them. After all, it sounds like something concocted by a drunk uncle who’s run out of wedding anecdotes. But hand on heart, this one’s as true as a bus timetable in Tasmania. It started badly and got worse. A mate’s funeral in the morning, followed by a humiliating drubbing on the rugby field from those bastards at Glenorchy, left me emotionally primed for poor decision-making. Naturally, poor decisions always seemed easier in the Mayfair Hotel, a Hobart establishment frequented by ex-private school boys, footballers drowning sorrows, and university types discovering creative ways to vomit on shoes. The Mayfair was split in two: upstairs, a dancefloor circled by a bar; downstairs, a cave-like cocktail lounge complete with stone walls that jutted out dangerously, decor likely inspired by someone who had never met a sober customer. Downstairs, Sterling, Dennis, and I were performing the delicate ritual of securing drinks. Sterling had just elbowed his way to the microscopic bar when a shrill voice pierced through the clamour. “Get the fuck outta my way! Move!” Sterling, ever diplomatic, ignored it. A mistake. Seconds later, a sharp kick to his Achilles forced his attention downward, to where the angry stare of a tiny, seething man awaited him. “One more word,” Sterling growled, “and I’ll give you a flogging.” The diminutive pugilist narrowed his eyes, smirked, and scampered off up the spiral stairs. Five carefree minutes later, he returned, trailing behind him a figure conjured straight from Nordic nightmares. Picture Thor after a decade-long meth binge, all beard and muscles and leather. This Sasquatch scanned the room until his tiny companion jabbed an accusing finger at Sterling. “You insult my friend?” he roared, voice rattling whiskey bottles. Sterling opened his mouth to protest, but the creature launched a haymaker so forceful it would’ve registered on seismographs in New Zealand. Sterling crumpled like cheap patio furniture. Dennis, our cranky lock-forward, decided bravely, foolishly, to intervene. His punch landed like a gentle breeze; the retaliation lifted Dennis by his throat and dropped him with a skull-splitting headbutt. I stood there, heart trying to flee via my mouth, watching my friends demolished. Bravery, rum and stupidity mingled within me, resulting in a feeble kidney punch I immediately regretted. Thor barely noticed, didn’t even waste a proper punch, swatting me away as effortlessly as a horse swishes flies. I soared backward, colliding skull-first into the decorative rocks, the decorator’s revenge on drunken idiots. Stars exploded in my vision. Semi-consciousness settled over me, a soft haze like waking from surgery or receiving an ill-advised boot to the head during rugby. Just as reality was returning, I felt a sharp, tiny jab to my temple. “Take this, bitch!” yelled my assailant, now standing triumphantly on the bench, fists raised like a bantamweight champion. “Oh, Christ, no,” I whimpered, but mercy was absent from his miniature vocabulary. Punches rained down on my head, each delivered with theatrical gusto, punctuated by knees to my face and humiliating roundhouse kicks. My pleas devolved into pitiful babbling as I endured a world-class thrashing from an enraged hobbit. Finally, the Sasquatch growled something, calling off his miniature accomplice. They vanished upstairs, leaving me beaten, bruised, and emotionally scarred for life. I spent the next two days in The Royal Hobart, nursing my pride and various fractured body parts. Months passed, and memories blurred, until one night, back at the Mayfair, fuelled by rum, vengeance, and testosterone, Sterling and I spotted our pint-sized nemesis strutting confidently, no mythical bodyguard in sight. Sterling shadowed him into the bathroom while I stood watch. A minute later, Sterling’s muffled voice beckoned me in. I entered cautiously, witnessing Sterling reenacting a boarding-school torment upon our miniature adversary, who seemed decidedly less brave without his Nordic protector. I tapped Sterling’s shoulder. “Mate, that’s probably enough. Let's go.” We left hastily, laughter and adrenaline masking our fear, confident justice had been served, only, as we exited, we locked back and noticed something unsettling: The midget was smiling. FSF

The Midget

The doorbell rings four times, not three, not a polite ding, but four. A herald of elbows and joy. That’s E. “You’re weird,” she announces, flinging off her backpack like it mouthed off. “So are you,” I reply, how love sounds when it's casual but true. “What are you doing?” She asks, already converting the living room into a command centre of chaos. “Roblox, Dad.” And just like that, I’m enlisted, in a war I don’t grasp, with weapons I can’t find, in a supermarket full of undead specials. “You’re so slow. Join me.” So, I do, fumbling my avatar like an old man in a nightclub, bouncing off walls, pressing wrong buttons. “What are we playing?” “Vampire Zombie Supermarket,” she says, like everyone knows this one. Of course. Of bloody course. “Dad, you’re crap.” “Stop dying, Dad!” Turns out, death is neither noble nor poetic when it’s digital and you’re being eaten by pixelated lettuce. “Didn’t you play games on your iPad as a kid?” I explain gently that my childhood was more Etch-A-Sketch and existential weather than anything touch-screened. We do almost nothing. No lessons, no outings. Just snacks, screen glare, and the sweet humiliation of being bad at something she excels at. But somehow, this…being called useless while she revives me from digital doom, feels like a perfectly spent Saturday. And somewhere, I imagine a man at a keyboard smiling at the absurdity, thinking: Let her drive. She's got this round. &nbsp; FSF

Weekends with E

In corridors paved with pending thought, Where filing cabinets sigh and rot, A clerk sits still. his name unsure. , Entrusted with what none endure.They spoke of colour, number four, Beyond the spectral office door, A shade not seen, nor rightly named, In systems never yet proclaimed.Trinary echoes shaped its birth, No eye beheld it, not on Earth. It hummed with taste, but not with tongue, A note of grief forever sung.It tasted, so the memos say, Of stars that dimmed and lost their way, Of neutron hearts that never fell To black hole’s deep, euphoric hell.Denied collapse, they simply burned, While time ignored them, clocks unturned. Their sorrow, dense, distilled, confined, A flavour borne in form of mind.The clerk, in ink, did try to speak Of flavour mournful, dim and weak: “It lingers like a law unsigned, A silence left for none to find.”His paper filed, his task complete, No answer came. Just dust. Repeat.FSF

The Flavour that Mourns

Good morning, you flickering bulbs, half-charged batteries sparking in rows. Sit. Screens off. Eyes sharp. This isn’t a lecture, it’s a live wire.Where chaos churns, profit hides, sharpening its teeth in the shadows. That’s the whole damn course. Etch it into your palms if you need to.Stalk any industry’s pulse. Hear the groan of rusted gears, the murmur of “That’s how it’s done.” That’s your cue, your target’s exposed. Take Devansh: no genius, just awake. Saw a process stumble, shouted, “Test the blood!” Cash flowed before the lab coats blinked. Point is: See. Speak. Win.Paul Christiano stormed theory’s temple, kicked the altar, said, “Your dogma’s wrong.” Redrew the map while they groped for stones. Lesson? Torch the script. Seize the chalk. Truth doesn’t bow to tenure.Some ideas sway like shaky scaffolding. Let them. A wobble reveals the cracks. Failure’s not a grave, it’s a scout. Every wreck pays tuition to brilliance. In short: Bleed for it.Path One: Committee. Smells of toner and fear. Produces safe, beige sludge. Path Two: Lone Torch. Stinks of burnt wire and coffee. Risks ruin, but sometimes, sometimes, it splits the sky. Choose. The market ignores fire drills. It crowns the arsonist who builds from ash.No spark? No blaze worth chasing? Fine. Rest. Learn jazz piano. Sketch crows. Curiosity’s the ember that never fades. Next term, the world might be kindling. Keep your matches dry.Not hope. Not prayer. Belief is facing a door and pushing because you don’t see a lock. If it splinters, you’ve learned its grain. Write the paper. Sell the splinters. In short: Push.List three processes on campus run like drunken emus. Write a one-page fix for one. Deadline: Friday. Budget: $50 and shameless grit. Extra credit: Prove me wrong. Win, and you’re at this podium next week.Professor snaps notebook shut, downs coffee. Questions? Complaints? Existential dread? Silence means you’re already rust. Prove you’re not.FSF

Break Glass in case of Insight

I wake to the radio blaring that today is sacred, Grand Final Day, as though the universe itself bleeds red-white-and-blue. I’d planned to spend the morning in bed with a joint and the cat, but, no, it’s our turn to host the annual footy circus. So, I drag myself downstairs, already hung-under from last night’s pinot, and find my husband, let’s call him “Mister Enthusiasm”, cranking the barbecue like he’s auditioning for MasterChef: Bogan Edition. Outside, the wind howls down the street, south-westerly, ice-tip, perfect for funerals, and flips the neighbour’s gnome flat on its smug face. I smile; one less thing standing upright today. The Guests They arrive exactly thirty minutes before bounce-down, clutching supermarket beer and tribal scarves. Hawks, Dees, Tigers, a lone, tragic Saint. Twelve of them if you count the better halves—though after three sauv blancs most will prove far worse. They clog my lounge like cholesterol, yammering about West Coast versus Collingwood as if it were Armageddon. I hover near the antique table (Gran’s pride; my dust-trap) laying out fruit and “appetisers”, code for anything I can tip out of a packet before the edibles kick in. I’d rather be anywhere else, preferably 1994, back when I still liked my husband, footy, and the idea of hosting a party. The Corporate Chorus The telly shows the MCG corporate boxes: suits neck-deep in cocktails, betting thousands they’ll never miss. One bloke whinges that Melbourne’s exit ruined his ski weekend. My eyes roll so hard I see last Tuesday. Skiers grieving the Demons.....spare me. Dave Bloody Marshall Enter Dave Marshall, Collingwood scarf strangling his neck, brand-new six-pack in one fist, ego in the other. Dave and I have been scratching each other’s itches lately, more out of boredom than lust, maintenance shag, nothing artisanal. Everyone knows except Mister Enthusiasm, who plays oblivious like it’s his super-power. Dave beelines to the kitchen and scoffs a brownie fresh off the cooling rack. I’d baked them for the puppy’s obedience class, chicken livers, wholemeal flour, no sugar, so naturally Dave proclaims them “five-star”. He grabs another before I can warn him he’s essentially eating Labrador cuisine. I sidle up to Mister E., glass in hand. “Your mate’s into the dog biscuits,” I mutter. He stares, baffled. “Dog food?” “Technically ‘dog treats’. High in protein, low in self-respect.” “What’s the worst that could happen?” he asks, proving once again he lacks basic imagination. Kick-Off Bounce-down. The living room erupts: shrieks, slaps, spilt Shiraz. I retreat to the back deck, light up, and watch the barbecue smoke coil into the grey sky, tiny freedom spirals. Inside, Mister E. is reciting useless stats while his mates grunt in agreement, the linguistic equivalent of belly-scratching. Footy: men paid a fortune to chase a demented egg while grown adults tie their identities to the result. Spare me twice. The Dog Biscuit Aftermath Ten minutes in, Dave rises, not for a goal celebration but to wander glassy-eyed into the garden. He unzips and christens my new tomato seedlings with Carlton Draught-flavoured urine, then flops face-down on the grass and commences snoring like a chainsaw in therapy. His legs twitch, chasing imaginary sticks. “Should we check on him?” Mister E. asks. I sip. “He’s lived through worse, he married once.” A Hawthorn supporter yells about holding the ball; I yell inside my head about holding my sanity. Final Siren Two hours later West Coast wins. Collingwood tears flow on screen; in my garden Dave is still horizontal, mumbling, “Another brownie… another brownie.” The party dribbles away, leaving half-empty glasses and my half-empty marriage. I nudge Dave with my boot. Nothing. Fine, let the night air do the nursing. At least the tomatoes got watered, though I doubt they ordered a lager chaser. I close the sliding door, twist the lock, and pour myself the day’s final pinot. Somewhere upstairs my husband hums the Eagles’ theme song, convinced the afternoon was a roaring success. I exhale smoke through the fly-screen and consider texting Dave a breakup essay, not that he’d read it. We’re all chasing sticks out here; some of us are just honest enough to admit the fetch isn’t fun anymore. &nbsp;Marty Shevelove Fan Fiction by FSF

F.S.F

Writing, Poems and Rants

Technocratic Caesarism

The Midget

Weekends with E

The Flavour that Mourns

Break Glass in case of Insight

Grand Final Day..... as June saw it.