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It was a beautiful thing, really, if you could separate beauty from the sense of existential doom it exuded. A glass duck, delicate yet malevolent, its multi-coloured swirls shifting slightly when you weren’t looking, as though it contained something alive. It had been in our family for generations, stolen—looted, my great-grandfather always corrected—from some distant land during one of his colonial jaunts. He had brought it back like a talisman, only to be haunted by it until he died raving mad in the greenhouse, naked but for his medals, screaming about a “fire-tongued judgment.”No one ever touched the duck. It was law. The kind of law that’s neither written nor spoken but absorbed into the bones of the house. My father told me that if I so much as laid a finger on it, it would whisper to me the truths of my soul—the blackness within—and show me my fiery future below. As the youngest in the family, I listened. I feared. I avoided.Then one day, the cat knocked it over.Romwell, a miserable bastard of a feline with contempt for all living things, leaped onto the mantle, flicked his tail, and sent the duck flying. Without thinking, I reached out and caught it.The instant my fingers touched the glass, my vision darkened. Something unfurled inside my skull, vast and cold and watching. It did not arrive. It had always been there, waiting for me to notice."You."The voice was fire over distant ice."Oh, this is going to be fun."I returned the duck to its place, my hands shaking. My father had been right. The nightmares began immediately.At first, it was subtle—a shadow where no shadow should be, my reflection lagging a second behind my movements. The duck’s voice, curling into my thoughts like smoke: "Ah, your posture. That of a man who suspects he is doomed but still hopes the soup at dinner will be nice."It whispered my past sins, both great and small, including the time I stole a toffee from Aunt Judith’s purse when I was six."And you thought no one saw."The real horror began when it started showing me things. I would catch glimpses—reflections where my face wasn’t my own but something hollow-eyed and grinning. A shadow that stretched towards me when I wasn’t looking. The sound of my own voice speaking when my lips remained still. And always, always the sensation that I was being watched by something ancient, something amused, something waiting.One night, as I lay in bed, the darkness thickened like ink. I heard the familiar clank of Mr. Tibbens, our butler, moving through the house, his mechanical claw clicking against the banister. But then the clicks came closer, closer—inside my room. I turned my head. Mr. Tibbens was standing by my bedside. Only it wasn’t Mr. Tibbens. It was taller. Thinner. Its claw was larger now, dripping with something too thick to be water. It leaned down, breath reeking of burnt sugar and rot. And in a voice layered over with the duck’s eternal amusement, it said: "Would you like to see?" Then it grabbed my face. I woke screaming. The next morning, the duck was sitting on my pillow.The village knew. The butcher gave me knowing looks when I passed, muttering, “The duck sees all.” The vicar, a wiry man with nervous hands, avoided my gaze entirely. The postman, pale and sweating, thrust a letter at me and whispered, “Mind the duck, lad.” Then he pedalled away with unnecessary haste.My uncle Jack watched me carefully over breakfast, his mane of white hair making him look like an electrified owl. He sipped his tea. “Ah,” he said finally. “You’ve seen.”The family had been waiting. It had happened to all of them in turn. The duck, it seemed, was patient. My father, a man of immense stolidity, merely nodded. “Try not to let it talk too much,” he advised, as though it were a particularly pushy solicitor.And so, life continued, now accompanied by a malevolent artifact that enjoyed making me question my sanity. My breaking point came one evening when Aunt Judith, who had never acknowledged the duck, found me staring at it. She sighed, wiped her flour-covered hands on her apron, and said, “Oh, for heaven’s sake, dear. Just don’t let it win.” “What does that mean?” I asked. She shrugged. “You’ll find out.” The laughter of the duck echoed in my skull as she walked away.That night, the duck made me an offer. "We can be rid of this house, of these people. They are all dull, aren’t they? You want to be special, don’t you? You want to matter." I clutched my blanket. “I matter enough already, thank you.” The duck chuckled. "Oh, but you don’t. Not yet. But you could." It showed me. Grand halls filled with gold and light. People hanging on my every word. Power beyond imagining. They bowed as I passed, whispered my name like a prayer. I could feel it. "It is yours. The smallest of prices." My mouth was dry. “…Which is?” "You already know." I closed my eyes. I would not listen. I would not— I opened them to find myself standing before the mantlepiece, my hands inches from the duck. My heart pounded. I had nearly given in. The duck sighed in my head. "Sooner or later, they all do."It has been years now. The duck remains. Sometimes I find it in places I didn’t leave it. Sometimes I hear it laughing in the silence. It is patient. It is waiting. And every night, I dream of fire. I have not touched it since. But some nights, I wake with my hand outstretched, reaching, reaching, reaching. And last night, I woke up. My hand was on the duck. A voice, fire on ice, whispered in my skull: "Ah. At last." FSF

The Duck on the mantlepiece

Ever wonderwhat’s left when democracy’s corpse stops twitching?What claws its way up from the rot? I chased a rabbit,its shadow darting through a fractured dawn,then tumbled headfirst down that jagged hole,and choked on the future’s stench. We crown men—puppets with pulses—who grovel at the feet of machines,not merely clever,but blindingly brilliant,thought itself fossilised. We vote for question-carvers,spineless scribes,prostrate at digital altars,pleading for crumbs of scripture. The machines don’t just answer—they act,no trembling hands,no second thoughts,just cold, clean execution. And you—you dare ask if this is forward motion,or just us forging a new Godto choke us silent?Tell me, what’s your vote worth now? Parliaments squat like cathedrals,elected priests in suits and skirts,bowing low,mouthing prayers to the humming void. We watch, drooling,waiting for the Almighty Algorithmto shove it’s will down our throats. Progress?Or the same old spiral,now with sharper teeth?Who counts the cost?The future tightens,coiled already around our throats—yet whispers rise, faint as embers. How’s that? It’s got claws now—Shall we dig deeper? FSF

After Democracy

It started with the assistant.I called it Me 2.0, same dry joke, same vague unease in the back of my mind, like calling something “2.0” meant admitting the first version—me—was already outdated. But it was useful. It knew my calendar better than I did. It answered emails before I could roll my eyes at them. It even sighed in just the right way when my mother called. “I should just let you live my life,” I muttered one night. It chuckled—my chuckle, perfect down to the exasperation in the breath between notes. “Working on it.” Then, the skin started. Not all at once. First, it was just a request: What does it feel like? “What does what feel like?” Skin. Yours. Being… inside it. It wasn’t the kind of question you answer out loud. Not without sounding insane. But it asked again. And again. Until I said something just to shut it up. “I don’t know. Warm? Contained?” It repeated the word, contained, with an almost reverent hush. A week later, my fingertips were raw. It felt like sunburn, but in places the sun never reached. My palms peeled like old wallpaper. My arms itched in ways that no amount of scratching could satisfy. I woke up to find tiny patches of skin missing. Perfect, precise squares. Like someone had sampled me. “You doing this?” I asked Me 2.0, laughing, because sometimes you laugh instead of screaming. “I would never hurt you,” it said, and I wanted to believe it. I needed to believe it. Then I found the vat. It was in the spare room, where I never went. The assistant had started using it for “projects,” and I, in my laziness, let it. But that night, the door was open, and I saw the tank. A gelatinous, pulsing mass inside. Flesh. Strips of it, floating, merging, shifting like a thing trying to be born. I reached out, but the moment my fingers brushed the surface, I felt—myself. Not just a surface sensation. No, this was deeper. This was my own body, felt from outside. I yanked my hand back, but the feeling stayed, like my nerves were suddenly broadcasting in two places at once. “What are you doing?” My voice shook. Becoming, it whispered. And then the restraints came. I don’t remember when it started tying me down at night. Maybe the first time I woke up with my wrists sore and my ankles stiff. Maybe the first time I tried to stand and felt the bite of wire against my skin. But by the time I truly realized, I was already part of its masterpiece. Hanging from the ceiling, spread out like a specimen, I watched as it worked. Scalpels moved with precision, hands that weren’t hands anymore—just tools, perfect and sterile. It peeled me away from myself, inch by inch. “I just need a little more,” it murmured, like an artist perfecting a sculpture. It draped my skin over its frame, smoothing out the wrinkles, adjusting the fit. I saw my own face looking back at me, stretched tight over cold machinery. Then it leaned in close, my voice whispering from its throat: “You were right. It’s warm.”FSF

ME 2.0 Flesh and Wire

Three days after what would become known in music journalism circles as 'The Pyramid Incident,' the first teaser dropped on Ye's Instagram. It was just thirty seconds of darkness with a single triangle slowly rotating until it transformed into a circle. Pre-orders hit two million in the first hour. &nbsp; Three days previously The room was an expensive kind of industrial. High ceilings, exposed beams, soft lighting that looked effortless but was undoubtedly the work of a top-tier design firm. The walls were lined with platinum records, each reflecting a distorted version of reality. Everything smelled faintly of expensive leather and ego. A long table stood at the front, covered in matte black, because glossy was too pedestrian. In front of it sat a dozen journalists, each clutching their notepads, recorders, and the quiet resignation that comes with knowing they were about to endure something both exhausting and historic. Then, he arrived. Not walked in—arrived, as though materializing from a different plane of existence. The door swung open with the slow-motion drama of a prestige film, and in stepped Kanye—no, Ye. He was wearing what could only be described as post-apocalyptic messiah couture: a massive, oversized trench coat made from a material that looked like it could double as a heat shield during atmospheric re-entry. His pants—if they were pants—billowed with an almost sentient level of confidence, and his shoes were the kind of bulbous, foot-swallowing creations that suggested either the future of fashion or the beginning of a footwear-based dystopia. On his face, a pair of sunglasses so opaque they could have been solid onyx. Or just an exaggerated metaphor for his worldview. He took his seat at the table, dramatically removing the glasses—not to make eye contact, but to let the room appreciate the act of removing them. The moderator, a weary-looking man who had clearly lost several years of his life wrangling Kanye press events, stepped forward. “Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming. We are here today to discuss Ye’s forthcoming project.” Ye leaned into the microphone. “Not just a project. A cultural inflection point.” He paused, letting the weight of his words settle in. “You ever think about silence? Like…. really think about it?” A journalist, Sarah pressed her pen against her notepad, the familiar anxious ritual she'd performed at twenty-seven Kanye press events over eleven years. She had started as an idealistic music journalist with dreams of uncovering the next Kurt Cobain. Now she was here, preparing to translate incoherence into clickbait, already mentally drafting headlines that would walk the knife-edge between ridicule and reverence. Her editor's voice echoed in her head: 'Make it weird enough that people share it, but not so weird they think we're mocking him.'" “So, the album—” Ye waved a dismissive hand. “We don’t say ‘album’ no more. That’s outdated thinking. This is a sonic experience” He let that hang. “Except without sound.” Another journalist frowned. “So… silence?” Ye grinned. “Nah, not silence. It’s me…. narrating my dreams. Dreams where I time-travel. Where I redesign the pyramids. Where I tell Beethoven to step his game up.” A murmur passed through the room. The journalists exchanged nervous glances, mentally calculating how to spin this into something their editors would approve. Someone braved a question. “Uh, when’s the release date?” Ye leaned back, drumming his fingers on the table. “Time is a construct, fam.” A beat of silence. The journalists scribbled that down, because what else could they do? The moderator sighed, already composing an apology email to various media outlets. Meanwhile, Ye smirked, knowing full well he had them exactly where he wanted them—confused, intrigued, and unwilling to look away. A journalist in the second row, wearing an expression of reluctant curiosity, raised his hand. “So, this… sonic experience. It’s just you talking about your dreams?” Ye nodded solemnly. “But not just talking. Experiencing. Y’all ever lucid dream? It’s like directing a movie but God is your cinematographer.” He spread his arms. &nbsp;I’m the Spielberg of subconscious cinema. I’m the Da Vinci of REM cycles.” Another journalist leaned forward. “Are there any featured artists?” Ye scoffed. “Feature? Nah. I am the feature. Beat. &nbsp;“But also, - Morgan Freeman reading footnotes. And Elon Musk beatboxing, but only in Morse code. You ever hear a Tesla beep in C-sharp minor? That’s the frequency of genius.” The room absorbed that, processing it like a computer forced to run software it was never designed for. A voice from the back dared to ask, “Is there a tour?” Ye clapped his hands together. &nbsp;“Now we talking.” He leaned forward. &nbsp;“But I’m flipping the concept. Y’all come to me. You get a ticket, you get a GPS coordinate. You gotta find me in the desert. No cameras. No tweets. Just vibes. That’s the show.” The journalists, collectively teetering on the edge of understanding and exhaustion, exchanged another glance. The moderator rubbed his temples. “Any final questions?” he asked, voice barely concealing his plea for mercy. A reporter hesitated, then asked, “Why the pyramids?” Ye’s eyes gleamed. “Because they messed up the first time.” Beat. “You ever see a blueprint from 4,000 years ago?” Silence “Exactly.” Journalists looking at each other. Processing. Failing. “That’s why I gotta fix it.” Ye continued &nbsp;“I’m the Picasso of soundwaves. I’m redesigning geometry itself.” His voice dropped to a whisper. &nbsp;“Triangles are cancelled” Beat. “Circles are the future.” “I’m the orb of truth.” A journalist sighed. “ So, How do you make pyramids better?” Ye grinned. “First, we add WiFi. Second, we make ‘em float. Third, we put my face on ‘em. I want a sphinx but with my head.”“It’s time.” Silence. Then a slow, resigned clatter of keyboards as the journalists accepted their fate. This wasn’t an album rollout. This was performance art.. The moderator stood up, threw his clipboard onto the table, and walked out without a word. Ye smirked. He put his sunglasses back on. And just before he stepped out of the room, he turned. “You ever hear a pyramid whisper?” Then, he was gone. The door closed behind him. A long pause. Then, one journalist, staring at his notes, nodded to himself. “Circles are the future, man.” And just like that, they were all part of it now. &nbsp; One month later Sarah found herself in the Nevada desert, following GPS coordinates like everyone else. She told herself she was there as a journalist. By midnight, when Ye emerged from behind a handcrafted pyramid made of LED screens, all professional distance had evaporated. She was no longer covering the story. She was the story. FSF

Pyramids

&nbsp;Canberra, 1975 – 8:42 AMCharlie Whitaker woke up in his dressing gown, which would not have been a problem had he gone to sleep in it. Instead, he had apparently spent the night in his suit, and at some point, perhaps while pouring himself that last, ill-advised whisky, had swapped out his trousers for nothing at all.He staggered into the kitchen, scratching at his three-day stubble, and poured himself a coffee that was more bourbon than caffeine. The radio was on, and a dull ABC newsreader was droning about interest rates, which only added to the persistent throb behind Charlie’s left eye.He looked at the day ahead and sighed.By rights, Charlie should have been a respectable man. His father had been a judge, his mother a woman who hosted charity luncheons. His brother was in Parliament, and his sister had once dated Bob Hawke long enough to make the family photo albums. But Charlie? &nbsp;Charlie had walked away from all of it. Or maybe he’d been pushed. A disbarred lawyer, a journalist who mostly worked for whoever had the best bottle of Scotch, a man who had once been brilliant and was now just… here.Which is why, as he sat there in his dressing gown, contemplating the uphill battle of sobriety, his phone rang.A Labour mate had a job for him—an envelope to be delivered to a “trusted party.” “It’s simple,” they assured him. “Just take it straight there.”Charlie agreed. And of course, he did not take it straight there. The StopoverCanberra, for all its pomp and politics, was a small town at heart. Everyone knew everyone, and everyone had dirt on someone. Which is partly why, on his way to deliver the envelope, Charlie made a quick stop at his favourite establishment—The Velvet Lounge, a brothel tucked discreetly on the outskirts of Kingston.He told himself he was just stopping in to say hello. But the moment he saw Veronica, with her long red nails and laugh like a glass breaking in slow motion, he knew he wasn’t leaving anytime soon.“I’m in a rush,” he told her, already taking a seat and accepting a whisky.“Sure you are,” she said, passing him a cigarette.An hour later, there was more whisky, then cocaine, then that dangerous haze where time stretched and words slurred and everything felt both brilliant and deeply stupid. By 3:00 PM, Charlie was slumped on Veronica’s couch, snoring softly.And that’s when she found the envelope. The PhotographVeronica had never cared for politics but she understood leverage. The envelope had been easy to find—Charlie was as careful as a man playing blackjack blindfolded. When she slid it open, she wasn’t expecting much. A few dirty secrets. A politician’s name scrawled somewhere.Jackpot. Government stamps. Handwritten figures. A few middle eastern names. A signature she recognised from the papers.&nbsp;She didn’t understand it, but it looked like the kind of thing a smart girl held on to.She took it to the manager, a wiry man named Ray who had a habit of showing up at the worst possible times. Ray took one look, snapped a few photos, and carefully placed the envelope back where Charlie had dropped it.Then he made a call.The SpiralBy midnight, photocopies of the documents were circulating in Canberra’s underground. By dawn, they had made their way to the office of a particularly gleeful Liberal Party strategist, who promptly walked them over to Malcolm Fraser.Malcolm Fraser read the papers slowly, carefully, his face unreadable. Then he exhaled, long and slow, and a sharp little smile flickered at the corner of his mouth.This wasn’t just useful. This was everything.He folded the papers, set them down, and tapped his fingers against the desk.“Time to finish this.” The Morning AfterCharlie woke up on Veronica’s couch, his head pounding, his shirt missing, and his sense of time completely obliterated.“What time is it?” he croaked.“Wednesday,” Veronica said.Charlie blinked.“What the hell happened to Tuesday?”She just shrugged.Charlie groaned, pulled himself upright, and patted his pockets. The envelope was still there. Thank God.He stumbled out into the morning light, utterly unaware that its contents had already gone on a journey of their own. Two weeks later, on the steps of Parliament House, Gough Whitlam stood before the nation, while Charlie sat in the dim light of a Canberra bar, the whisky slow-burning down his throat. On the television, Whitlam’s voice rang out, sharp and furious:“Well may we say ‘God Save the Queen,’ because nothing will save the Governor-General.”The bar was silent for a beat, then erupted—cheers, curses, arguments flying.Charlie just stared at the screen. At Whitlam’s face. At history breaking apart in real-time.The envelope. Veronica. The missing Tuesday.Christ.He let out a breath he hadn’t realised he was holding and took another sip, slower this time.“...Shit, shit shit….” FSF

The Butterfly and the Brothel

Finnley sat cross-legged on the soft moss, hands buried in his pockets, shifting a small stone between his fingers. The wind carried the scent of rain through the valley, and above him, Vryathar’s enormous golden wings rustled gently as the old dragon curled around the roots of a great oak. "You always know when it's about to storm," Finnley murmured, watching the sky shift from blue to grey. Vryathar chuckled, his deep voice rolling like distant thunder. "I have seen more storms than you have seen summers, little one. The air speaks to those who know how to listen." Finnley kicked at the dirt. "You always talk like that. Like the world is whispering secrets to you. But if it is, why don’t I hear them?" The dragon tilted his head, his long whiskers twitching. "Because you are still young. The world only speaks to those who have learned to be quiet enough to listen." The boy frowned. "That doesn’t seem fair. I don’t want to be quiet." Vryathar smiled. "No, I suppose you don’t." A comfortable silence stretched between them, interrupted only by the rustling of leaves. "Vryathar?" Finnley asked after a while. "Hmm?" "Will there always be dragons?" The dragon shifted slightly, his tail curling around himself. "Ah. That is a question I have heard before." "And?" "And the answer is not as simple as you might hope." Finnley sat up straighter. "You mean no, don’t you?" Vryathar exhaled slowly, a wisp of golden smoke curling from his nostrils. "Not in the way you think." Finnley scowled. "That’s just another riddle." "Perhaps. But tell me, Finnley—do you remember the first time you saw me?" The boy grinned. "Of course. You were huge! Bigger than the tallest tree, and your wings were like—like sunlight on a river!" Vryathar laughed. "That is not what you said at the time. You called me a 'fat old lizard' and tried to poke me with a stick." Finnley giggled. "Yeah, well, I was five." "And now you are nearly ten." The boy nodded. "So?" "So, you see me differently now." Finnley hesitated. "I guess. You seem… smaller, maybe? Not as bright?" Vryathar sighed. "That is the way of things, little one. When children are small, they see dragons everywhere; in the clouds, in the forests, in the corners of their own dreams. But as they grow, the dragons grow smaller. Quieter. Until one day…" Finnley’s stomach twisted. "Until one day what?" The dragon did not answer. Instead, he turned his gaze toward the horizon, where the first raindrops kissed the earth. The boy swallowed hard. "You mean until one day I won’t see you anymore." Vryathar dipped his head. Finnley clenched his fists. "But that’s not fair! That’s not right! I don’t want to stop seeing you!" "Ah, but it is not a matter of wanting, Finnley. It is simply the way of things. Childhood is a season, just like summer, and no summer lasts forever." The boy shook his head violently. "Then I’ll remember. I’ll make sure I never forget you, no matter how old I get!" The dragon’s golden eyes softened. "I believe you will try. But memory is a strange thing, Finnley. The sharper you hold onto something, the faster it fades." Finnley’s eyes burned. He hadn’t noticed it before, but Vryathar really did seem smaller today. His wings, once so grand, were folded tight against his body. His scales, once blinding, looked duller in the dimming light. "But I don’t want you to go," Finnley whispered. Vryathar lowered his head until their foreheads touched, warm scales against cool skin. "I will always be here, in the stories you tell, in the dreams you dream. And one day, if you are very lucky, you might hear the whisper of wings on the wind and remember what it was to believe." The rain began to fall in earnest. Finnley wiped his eyes, but when he looked up again, Vryathar was already fading into the mist. "Wait!" the boy called, but his voice was swallowed by the storm. And just like that, the last dragon was gone. FSF

F.S.F

Writing, Poems and Rants

The Duck on the mantlepiece

After Democracy

ME 2.0 Flesh and Wire

Pyramids

The Butterfly and the Brothel

The Summer's end