T3ESSAYS

I was afraid to admit that he was the type of person that I simultaneously feared and envied. With his handsome tan, bronze hair and caramel eyes, this American dream boy named Sam drew silent admiration from all of my schoolmates. During that sweltering afternoon, Mrs. Latorre introduced him as…

There was a guy standing opposite me on the Tube. Head shaved to hide a receding hairline, face creased like a used napkin. Wouldn’t look out of place on Jeremy Kyle. I call him Dad, but he’s more like the weird uncle you warn your friends about before they meet…

My father and brother are standing by an old yellow Mercedes Benz I’ve never seen before. Dad’s wearing a pair of blue-tinted aviators. I’m pleasantly surprised — sometimes he wears women’s sunglasses without realising and if a person kindly points it out to him, he doesn't seem to care. As…

The last time I felt betrayed, I was at Chinwag, a Thai-fusion restaurant in central Christchurch having dinner with my childhood friends. We sat in a booth passing drinks around while the lanterns above cast dancing red shadows on our faces. Kathy and Rebecca were back from Otago for the…

The Catholics who sold us our lot have fourteen children, which didn’t seem like overkill at first so much as midcentury optimism — that was until Steve, the paterfamilias, let slip to my dad that his children had also gone forth and multiplied. Vigorously. The brood now stood at sixteen,…