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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: calc(16px * var(--body-fontSize, 1)); font-weight: inherit; font-style: var(--body-fontStyle, normal); background-color: rgba(249,250,251,var(--tw-bg-opacity));">The Alps were quiet that night, blanketed in deep snow. &nbsp;Krampus sat on a rock outside his cave, chain-smoking and flicking ash onto a pile of broken toys. His horns cast long, sinister shadows in the moonlight. He hadn’t terrorised a child in decades—not since Santa turned Christmas into an industrialised farce. Once upon a time, he was feared. Now? He was just another washed-up myth with a nicotine habit.That’s when Greta arrived, stomping through the snow like she owned it. Sixteen years old, blue hair, sharp-tongued, and angrier than a vegan at a steakhouse. She had never received anything but coal from Santa and was pissed.“You’re Krampus, right?” she said, sizing him up. “The demon goat who puts bad kids in sacks?”“Used to be,” Krampus grumbled. “Now I just sit here, waiting to die or get a call from some hipster who wants me to endorse artisanal coal.”“Well, you’re going back to work,” Greta said, pulling out a tablet. On the screen was a live feed of Elfazon HQ, Santa’s sprawling tech fortress. Conveyor belts stretched for miles, spitting out algorithm-approved presents with the soul-crushing precision of a dystopian wet dream. “This guy,” she said, pointing to Santa’s bloated figure on the feed, “has ruined everything. Christmas is a sham. And you’re going to help me burn it to the ground.”Krampus exhaled a long plume of smoke, staring at the screen. “Kid, you’re insane.”Greta smirked. “Maybe. But aren’t you bored?” By midnight, the unlikely duo was barreling toward Mistleton in a stolen sleigh. Greta had rigged up a few upgrades—a turbo boost, cloaking device, and a sound system blasting punk rock at a volume that made Krampus’s ears bleed. “This is your sleigh?” he yelled over the music.“Stole it from some influencer elf,” Greta shouted back.&nbsp;They crashed into Elfazon HQ through a window on the 17th floor, landing in the Naughty-or-Nice Department. Greta pulled a crowbar from her bag and started smashing servers like a tech-savvy Thor. Krampus, meanwhile, found himself face-to-face with a robotic elf, its LED eyes glowing red.“Unidentified intruder,” it chirped. “Please remain still while I initiate lethal—”Krampus didn’t wait for it to finish. He grabbed the bot by its plastic head and hurled it into a stack of gift-wrapped Pelotons.“Nice work, goat boy,” Greta said, tossing him a baseball bat. “Let’s wreck some Christmas spirit.” It didn’t take long for the alarms to go off. Sirens wailed, drones swarmed, and somewhere in the distance, an automated voice calmly announced, “Containment breach. Naughty Level: Critical.”“Here comes the big man,” Greta muttered, nodding toward the elevator. The doors dinged open, and out waddled Santa Claus himself. He was bigger than &nbsp;expected, not just fat but huge, his red suit stretched tight over a gut that could have its own postcode. His beard was immaculate, though, perfectly trimmed—a vanity that betrayed just how much he cared about his image.“Krampus,” Santa boomed, his voice like a late-night ad for diet pills. “You’ve got a lot of nerve coming here.”Krampus lit another cigarette. “And you’ve got a lot of nerve calling this Christmas.”Santa’s eyes narrowed. “Do you have any idea how hard it is to run a global gift empire? Do you know what kind of margins I’m working with here?”“Do you know what kind of soul you’ve sold?” Greta snapped. “Kids don’t even write letters anymore—they fill out online forms. You turned magic into logistics, you fat bastard.”Santa took a step forward, his boots thudding like boulders. “Magic doesn’t pay the bills, little girl. You think reindeer fly on wishes? They eat, and they eat a lot.”That’s when Greta hit him with the crowbar. The battle raged through Elfazon HQ, a glorious mess of broken drones, smashed conveyor belts, and one incensed Krampus using his chains to lasso Santa like a deranged rodeo clown. Greta hacked into the central database, her fingers flying across the keyboard. “I’m rewriting the algorithm,” she called out. “Every kid gets a lump of coal this year.”Krampus grinned, his sharp teeth gleaming in the flickering fluorescent light. “And what about the adults?”“They get worse,” Greta said, her eyes glinting with mischief. “Cancelled streaming subscriptions. Socks. Self-help books.”Santa bellowed in rage, struggling against the chains. “You think you’re saving Christmas? You’re ruining it!”“Good,” Krampus growled, tightening the chains. “It’s about time someone did.” By dawn, Elfazon HQ was in ruins. The gift data had been scrambled, the drones reprogrammed to drop flaming coal into suburban swimming pools, and Santa himself left tied to a chair, forced to watch as Krampus and Greta broadcast their message to the world:“Christmas is cancelled. Go outside. Talk to your neighbours. Be weird. Be naughty. And for the love of all that’s unholy, stop asking for iPads.”As their sleigh soared into the sunrise, Greta turned to Krampus. “That was fun, what mischief is next?”He lit another cigarette, the glow illuminating his crooked grin. “Now? We go and knee cap the Easter Bunny. The guy's a pick and he has been skating by for far too long.”

A Festive Apocalypse

a lion and a lamb stitched together, not by love, but by the rough hands of a universe that wanted a laugh, or a lesson no one asked for. an animal at war with itself, claws and fear tangled in its veins, walking the world in search of a key to unlock peace it may never find. the lion wakes first, eyes burning with the sun’s ambition. he sees a kingdom—vast, abundant, his. he roars and the world bends; obstacles crumble like dust in his path. he knows what he wants and takes it with teeth and muscle. his is a fire that consumes but never apologizes. he is his own master, his own god. but the lamb stirs too, trembling beneath the weight of morning. its world is small, a landscape of shadows and imagined predators. it sees only what looms ahead, the next sheep, the shepherd’s hand, the promise of safety if it obeys. the lamb begs where the lion takes, fears where the lion fights. its heart beats in panic, its strings pulled by invisible hands. and so the creature rises, half-majesty, half-dread, steering itself into another day. you feel the ship beneath your hands, the course uncertain. is it the lion at the wheel, confident and wild? or the lamb, hesitant and hoping to survive? each morning, you decide who sails, but the war inside rages on.

Fusion

Adam had always been a screw-up. He knew it, the Master knew it, and the whole damn universe knew it too. In every possible version of every possible world, there he was—blundering, fumbling, and tripping over his own humanity. Sometimes he was a drunk. Sometimes a preacher. Once, he’d been a king, but that had ended badly. The Master, cosmic and cruel, had suffered Adam’s idiocy across too many timelines, and patience wasn’t in his nature.“For your sins,” the Master said, his voice rippling through creation like a rolling quake, “I will take from you the colour red.” It didn’t happen all at once. No, the Master was deliberate. The red bled out of the world slowly, like a wound refusing to clot. Adam watched it go, helpless, horrified, as the color seeped from the flowers, the fruits, the sky. By the time it was gone, it was as though it had never existed. Time folded neatly over the wound, like a lie you tell yourself to stay sane. People didn’t notice. Of course they didn’t. How could they? They couldn’t miss what they’d never had. But Adam knew. Adam saw it all. He walked the streets of this pale, washed-out world, feeling like he’d been gutted. Roses, once blazing with romance and longing, were now dull and sickly. Lovers still exchanged bouquets, their smiles empty of fire. He passed by a fruit stand and stared at the tomatoes, greenish-gray and shriveled-looking, the kind of thing you’d only buy if you were starving. The city looked smaller somehow. Flags flapped limply in the wind, their colors muted, their messages subdued. Without red, they were just pieces of cloth, signifying nothing. Adam wandered past a café, peering through the window at the people inside. They sipped glasses of wine that looked like dirty water. He felt something twist in his chest. It wasn’t just red they’d lost. It was everything red meant. The rush of blood to the face. The heat of rage. The quick, sharp pulse of lust. Life. Wars still happened, of course. People didn’t need red to kill each other. But they weren’t the same wars. There were no fiery speeches, no vivid banners snapping in the wind. Soldiers marched, they fought, they died—but it was cold, mechanical, like a machine grinding forward because it didn’t know how to stop. Adam stumbled into a museum once, hoping to feel something, anything. The paintings were there, hung in their expensive frames, but they looked flat, dead. The Renaissance masterpieces were smudges of beige and brown. He stared at a portrait of some saint or another—probably Mary—but her robes were pale, her lips thin and colorless. He wanted to scream, to shake the other people wandering the gallery. “Don’t you see it?” he wanted to shout. “Don’t you see what’s missing?” But they wouldn’t, couldn’t. To them, everything was normal. Perfectly fine. He wanted to laugh. Perfectly fine. That was the problem. The whole world had become perfectly fine. He spent nights in bars, hunched over glasses of whiskey that didn’t burn the way it should have. His mind drifted to the Master, the smug bastard, sitting somewhere in the great cosmic nothingness, watching him, waiting for him to break. Adam wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. He wouldn’t. But God, he was close. He thought about blue sometimes. What if the Master had taken that instead? Would the skies have turned to smoke, the oceans to sludge? Would people notice the absence of calm, of depth, of infinity? Maybe. But blue was too distant, too cool. Red was life. Without it, the world wasn’t a world anymore—it was a sketch. A bad first draft. And so he kept walking, kept drinking, kept feeling the absence of red like a hollow space inside him. He tried to remember the way it used to feel, that hot, bright, unbearable fire. Sunsets that seared your eyes. The slick, dark gleam of blood on your knuckles after a fight. The way a woman’s mouth, painted crimson, could make you forget your own damn name. It was all gone now, a dream he couldn’t wake from. He met a woman once, on one of his aimless walks. She was pretty, he thought, in a quiet, pale way. They talked for a while, and she smiled at him. There was something kind in her eyes, something steady. She asked if he wanted to come back to her place. He almost said yes. Almost. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t look at her pale lips and pretend they were red. He walked away, his hands shoved deep in his pockets, his head full of ghosts. The world had adapted, but Adam couldn’t. He carried red with him, like a curse, like a memory that wouldn’t fade. It wasn’t just a color, damn it. It was the thing that made life worth living. Without it, people didn’t feel—they endured. And Adam endured too, because what else could he do? He carried the weight of the Master’s punishment, alone in a world that had forgotten how to burn.

out of bed. out of bed again. the shower sputters. where’s the uniform? the sister's screaming— "she’s a biarch," teeth unbrushed, ipad dead. “can I get tuckshop?” “do I have to eat this lunch?” who ate the last damn avocado? it’s late. it’s always late. socks on. shoes on. kids yelling, "I want the front seat!" "No, I want the front seat!" the car groans. I groan louder. dad, my sister sucks. drive. “what’s at school today?” “nothing.” “nothing.” "bye, dad." "have a good day." but don’t park close, don’t let anyone see me. stop a block away. they tumble out. sigh. drive. gone.

School Run

Saxon stood in his small, windowless kitchen, the drone of street traffic leaking through the thin walls. The town house was an island of chipped paint and shadows, and the laundry basket stared back at him from the corner. It was too full, spilling over with shirts that had seen better days, undies with holes in them and socks that had given up their mates long ago. Fold. Sigh. Reach. The clock ticked slow, each second stretching like old elastic, and Saxon could almost hear the seconds creak as they passed. He swallowed a yawn that tasted like yesterday’s instant noodles and ran a hand over his stubbled jaw. The acid was supposed to make this better, add colour to the black-and-white monotony of a day of household chores. Something, he’d thought, anything but this grey grind. Tick. Tick. The tab had hit his tongue like a lie, but it was starting to spread now, creeping through the folds of his brain, waking up corners that hadn’t been lit in years. He folded another shirt, the fabric suddenly soft, delicate. The room shifted, as though a whisper had passed just behind him, and a chill pricked the base of his neck. Then it came, slow at first — a soft thrum, a baseline to a slow rock song. The pile of clothes moved. Saxon’s eyes darted, but he couldn’t trust them; his pulse climbed, a tight, uneasy tempo. One shirt flapped, then two, sleeves writhing like fish out of water. The basket glowed, the plastic turning translucent and alive, lit from within by some unknown fire. He backed into the counter, knocking over an old mug that crashed, unseen, to the floor. With a roar, the laundry leaped, taking the air in a mad cyclone. Socks and shirts swirled, pants twisted themselves into rigid lines like referees with whistles made of belt loops. The hum intensified, shrieking into a scream that ripped through Saxon’s chest. He felt small, insignificant, staring up at the whirling tower of fabric. The shirts, now fully sentient, descended into madness. Dividing into teams, sleeves snapping and flapping, forming patterns like battle flags. Before his eyes: rugby matches were breaking out among clothes that yesterday were just crumpled, lifeless things at the foot of his bed. The socks formed a huddle, their fibres pulling tight in anticipation, and the shirts, emboldened by some unearthly spirit, charged forward, tackling each other in chaotic beauty. Buttons popped like shrapnel, small plinks on the tiled floor. “Welcome to the Laundry League!” a Bruce Buffer sound alike bellowed, resonating from deep within the basket. It was the growl of something that had no business speaking, a nightmare tone that tightened his gut and sent his mind spiralling into questions. What am I seeing? A laugh, dry and cracked, fell from his lips. The laundry, his laundry, had become alive. And not just alive — aware. Competing. Knocking themselves ragged in a knock-out competition for reasons he could not comprehend. Panic bubbled up, hot and fast. What does it mean? Saxon thought. His pulse quickened as the realization landed heavy — that life, his life, had become no more meaningful than this; a stupid, shirt-on-sock brawl in a corner of an empty kitchen. Was he nothing more than a bystander, watching chaos unfold, a forgotten referee in a game that made no sense? The acid twisted this truth, writhed in his mind like a worm gnawing at the last thread of reason. He screamed, or maybe it was the voice inside that screamed, ricocheting through his chest and throat. The fabric armies surged, scored, and regrouped, careless of his existential terror. He wanted to stop it, stop the whole thing. But how? The room shrank around him, a pulsating prison made of cotton and sweat-stained polyester, and he dropped to his knees, hands in his hair, as the cheers of the winning shirts reached a fever pitch. Then just as he thought he could take no more, silence. The roar cut out, leaving a vacuum that buzzed and echoed in his head. Saxon blinked, ragged breaths slowing, eyes adjusting as reality crawled back, piece by piece. The kitchen was still, heavy with the weight of what shouldn’t have been. His hands were shaking, fingers tangled in his hair. He pushed himself up and stared at the mess he expected to see — but there was none. Instead, the laundry was gone. The basket stood empty and still, as if mocking him. He rubbed his eyes, muscles sore with tension, and turned, stepping over the shattered mug. The fridge door was open, and something inside caught his eye. Saxon staggered back, a new wave of dread rolling over him. Inside, where there should have been condiments and half-forgotten leftovers, were neat stacks of his folded laundry, socks tucked into corners, shirts stacked like files in a drawer. The fridge hummed its usual hum, indifferent, and Saxon let out a half-laugh, half-sob. Folding laundry would never be the same again.

Laundry

I don’t fear nuclear weapons or the tools of man.the sharpest edge, the most powerful thing, is a story.the editor, king of distribution, sat once in that heavy chair, deciding who gets a voice and who gets dust.ideas? cheap. anyone can toss words like crumpled bills into the void.but who owns the press, who decides what makes the morning page? that’s the king of the universe.I can write a song about dangerous untruths, but it’ll die in the dark if the editor says so.tyrants, they wear ties called News Limited, called Facebook, saying, “We didn’t write it.” but yes, you put it on the front page of the Australian.there’s a line, barely visible, between free speech and truth.editors, they’re supposed to watch that line, give breath to freedom, but not fuel the flames of deceit.truth, it’s ugly. it takes work, bites back, and no one wants the taste.lies? they’re sweet, slick, cost next to nothing, glide down easy.so, we come to this darkest night. the biggest fear: getting so tangled in stories, deceptions, delusions, we lose the scent of truth, drowning in a global hallucination.midnight strikes when the algorithm sits in the chair, choosing the shiny things, pushing them into eyes and ears, and hiding the rest.it’s got no morals, just engagement. truth, rotting on the sidelines.and then we’re all fucked.adrift in a sea of lies, lost forever to the current that pulls us away from the shore.

F.S.F

Writing, Poems and Rants

A Festive Apocalypse

Fusion

Red

School Run

Laundry

The darkest night