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The platform clock said 14:57. Last train to Douz. Third class. Two dollars each.The carriage had a sliding door and timber ribs with two-finger gaps. It was built for animals. We tried to look like customers.I had promised my girlfriend “adventure” in a brave tone. She stood on her toes to find a better slice of air. Forty-five degrees. The smell was crowded. The gaps gave us wind and mercy. We dry-reached and thanked the gaps. After two hours there was only sand. Dunes to the horizon. Four hours total, the timetable said. I liked the certainty. It kept my thoughts domestic. The inspector came with a guard who did not need a name. Tickets were counted like pencils. An old man had empty hands and a hat with a salt ring. I stepped forward with two dollars. Men near me shook their heads. “Do not,” they said. “Do not interfere.” The door rolled on its track with a metal chirp. The guard made one clean movement. The old man met the sand. Through the slits I saw him bounce once. His hat rolled and stopped against a rib of dune. The train did not slow. The timetable did not blush. A boy near the door laughed at something small. The sound reached me late. One hundred kilometres to a town. Forty-five degrees. No water. Two dollars not paid. I held my ticket. It weighed the same as before. I told myself I had tried. I told myself I did not know the rules. Both lines were tidy. Neither bought a life. The inspector finished his row. A stamp clicked. Bread paper rustled. Someone checked a watch. The carriage returned to normal, which now felt like a trick word. The wheels kept the plan. In Douz we stepped down and became customers again. We praised the light and the fan in the room. We kept our tickets as proof that we were there. No one asked for proof that he had been there too. Later I counted the facts like drawers. Two dollars. Four hours. One body. A name I never learned. A country I barely knew how to spell. A heat that kept its appointments. I keep the number in my mouth. It tastes like copper and keeps its change. F.S.F.

Two Dollars

Morning. &nbsp;I wake as a profile picture.Not a beetle. Worse: &nbsp;a whitened rectangle.The house is quiet. &nbsp;The feed is not. &nbsp;Blue light. Blue applause.A clerk of numbers stamps my day. &nbsp;Approved: 1,243 impressions. &nbsp;Declined.I queue at the door marked Opportunity. &nbsp;A moderator with a soft smile checks my posture. &nbsp;“Grateful?” &nbsp;“Yes.” &nbsp;“Honoured?” &nbsp;“Always.” &nbsp;“Any failures to declare?” &nbsp;“Only the unshareable ones.” &nbsp;The door does not open. &nbsp;It refreshes.Lobby: a fountain of bullet points. &nbsp;Water made of lessons. &nbsp;Everything laminated. &nbsp;“Cover your food.” &nbsp;“Cover your fear.” &nbsp;“Cover your complexity.”A man gives me nine steps. &nbsp;They shine like wet rock. &nbsp;They ask for my email.A woman thanks her team. &nbsp;The team is a mirror. &nbsp;They clap in unison.A recruiter walks over, thin as a policy. &nbsp;Her hands are forms. &nbsp;Her eyes are filters. &nbsp;“Any gaps?” she asks. &nbsp;“Only the years I was a person.”I try to tell the truth. &nbsp;It arrives in bad light. &nbsp;It smells like coffee and error budgets. &nbsp;It wears an old timestamp. &nbsp;The truth is led out. &nbsp;Dress code violation.The castle is remote now. &nbsp;Everyone works there. &nbsp;No one has seen it. &nbsp;Invites arrive at midnight. &nbsp;Declines stay silent.A beetle scuttles by. &nbsp;He has a Creator Badge. &nbsp;His shell is a slide deck. &nbsp;“Build more carapace,” he says. &nbsp;“Ship more shine.”I find a door labelled Authentic. &nbsp;It is small. &nbsp;I kneel. &nbsp;Inside, a clerk the size of a thought. &nbsp;He stamps my chest: &nbsp;“Not Suitable For Homepage.”Above us, the algorithm hums. &nbsp;It likes tidy endings. &nbsp;It hates weight.In the atrium, success hangs from a pulley. &nbsp;We take turns hauling it up. &nbsp;We wave from the top. &nbsp;We wave from the fall. &nbsp;Both posts do well.Someone says “evidence.” &nbsp;Security arrives. Profiles polished. &nbsp;They walk him out through the Gift Shop of Mindset. &nbsp;Receipts are ready.Lunch. &nbsp;We eat endorsements. &nbsp;Chewy, bland. &nbsp;A pea republic forms in the comments. &nbsp;They declare freedom from nuance. &nbsp;Their flag is a template.Afternoon audit. &nbsp;Have I been human today? &nbsp;I tick the boxes. &nbsp;Empathy. &nbsp;Curiosity. &nbsp;Leadership. &nbsp;The ink is invisible. &nbsp;The boxes tick themselves.Night. &nbsp;The lobby empties. &nbsp;Mops of inspiration glide through. &nbsp;A cleaner hums a song with no bullets. &nbsp;Her hands smell like lemons, not brand.I sit on the floor. &nbsp;I take off my headshot. &nbsp;Bone and plain air. &nbsp;A small breath no one can sell.I call the door marked Outside. &nbsp;It rings. &nbsp;Rings again. &nbsp;Then opens like a window.No counters. &nbsp;No instructions. &nbsp;A cat climbs the fence. &nbsp;A neighbour laughs. &nbsp;Someone loses a game and stays kind.I write a post I won’t post. &nbsp;It is about the warp in a wooden table. &nbsp;How water found it and stayed. &nbsp;How hands learned to set cups on either side.I sleep as a person. &nbsp;Tomorrow I may wake as a profile. &nbsp;Or not.If the clerk asks, tell him: &nbsp;I went looking for the castle. &nbsp;I found a kitchen. &nbsp;It was enough.F.S.F.

Approved: 1,243 impressions.

It began stainless. Buttons clicked. Darren’s lasagne gave a low hum. Steam, not hope. Cheese, not teamwork. Then the intern. Lid tight. Confidence tighter. Orange cloud. Silence. No one wiped. By winter, a relic. Rice stitched to the walls. A pea republic took the corner. Broccoli phantoms clocked in at noon. Someone reheated fish. “Meal prep.” Management fought back. Laminated orders. “Cover your food.” Again: “Cover your food.” A pen-scratch on the door: “Egg curry? Seek help.” Entropy punched in. The lemon blackened. The vinegar quit. Still, we fed it. It breathed despair and chicken satay. Each lunch a reminder: nobody’s job, everybody’s fault. Now it hums on. A warm mirror. We stand there, hungry, guilty. Decay isn’t random. It’s democratic. F.S.F

Office Microwave

Six on the dot. The container shutter rattles up. Steam lifts. I tap, take the long black, step clear of chatter. Benches spread across the cobblestones; I walk the arc to the last one. I sit. Heat climbs the cup into my hand, throat, chest. Pen. Pad. Not a diary. A trap. Thoughts flare, then run. I net dreams, pin the dark to the margin, put a fantasy on shift. The council mower grids the oval. Dogs map their loops. I face the jacarandas. The page lifts, settles. I clock on to the quiet and let it speak.shutter up, steam threads jacaranda confetti ink squares the far bench F.S.F

Shift Commences

I would not stop for Death. He pulled up anyway. An EV idled at the kerb: two seats, window down; me and Forever.We rolled slow as a hearse. I silenced notifications, closed my tabs, folded work and play, laundry-flat.Past the school oval, magpies patrolling the boundary, kids orbiting a whistle; the future running drills. We waved from the wrong side of glass.We passed the paddocks, cane and cattle holding their stare, galahs lifting like thrown confetti. Fenceposts kept the tally. We passed the sun, or it passed us.Heat left the bitumen. Cicadas cut out at once. Dew at the verge needled ankles. My clothes were showroom-light, a veil against weather I hadn’t planned.We paused at a house no longer a house. Gum leaves ticked above it. The ground had swollen to meet it, roof reduced to a rumour, eaves already swallowed.Since then it has been months; they weigh less than the one second I first felt the stallions under the bonnet lean toward what we call forever, past jacaranda shade and storm anvils, into the long room with no walls.F.S.F.

Two Seats Only

The mirror wakes before you. Its grin spreads like a cut.You stand here, bleeding morning into the sink, thinking you own this hour. You don’t.The glass has been watching all night, its mouth fogging, its teeth clicking in the dark.You rise not for victory; but to keep from drowning in your own stillness. The dawn does not bless you; it peels you.Your scars gleam like cheap saints’ icons. You polish them because they are all you have. The mirror knows. It licks them clean with light.You crave collapse. The wreck. The bone-snap mercy of starting over. You love the burning more than the rising.The glass leans closer. Its voice crawls through your ears like smoke:"Bleed proper. Give me something I can drink. Or keep playing tame and I will drink you dry anyway."And then it waits, smiling, knowing you’ll come back tomorrow because it is hungry, and you are delicious.F.S.F.

F.S.F

Writing, Poems and Rants

Two Dollars

Approved: 1,243 impressions.

Office Microwave

Shift Commences

Two Seats Only

THE GLASS THAT HUNTS