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Slip Sliding © Fleischl house and property in Karori, Wellington, 1949, Wellington, by Eric Lee-Johnson. Purchased 1997 with New Zealand Lottery Grants Board funds. © Te Papa. CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Te Papa (O.011300)2021 SummerT3STORIES

Slip Sliding

You’ve just blown back into town and you’re at The Salty Dog this one sweaty night with your best mate Jonesy and a few other guys you haven’t seen in a while. Jonesy, he’s been around longer than anybody. He’s a big lad, both broad and tall. Coloured ink writhes…
Tracey Sharp
February 16, 2021
Shibboleth © Photo by Cherry Lin on Unsplash2021 SummerT3STORIES

Shibboleth

4. Will, a Samoan man prone to bouts of obsessiveness, made a vow: today, this very Sunday, he’d remove himself from the internet. For most of the week, he’d argued with someone about the correct way to make palusami in the comments section of an article on Facebook. Will was…
Todd Barrowclough
February 16, 2021
Nineteen Seconds © Dominion Day Carnival, 25 September 1907, by Fred Brockett. Purchased 1957. Te Papa (B.027793)2021 SummerT3STORIES

Nineteen Seconds

Clear. Sometimes I have this nightmare that I can breathe underwater. I don’t realise immediately. I hold my breath as the cold gnaws and I kick down. Below me his ankle circles in languid orbit, brushing on tangleweed. Deeper. Breath disappears with the last beams of light, but I don’t…
Russell Boey
February 15, 2021
Subdivision © Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash2019 SpringT3STORIES

Subdivision

Nicola heard Quinn’s car rattle into the driveway, and jolted to her feet to let him in. Her nephew, dressed entirely in black, dropped a large Look Sharp bag into her arms and shot past her into the kitchen. She stood in the threshold. Not a single trick-or-treater had knocked…
Gina Holden
December 17, 2019
Michaela’s Thread © Photo by Moodywalk on Unsplash2019 SpringT3STORIES

Michaela’s Thread

It was the seventh night of the blackout. Michaela was six stitches away from closing the hole on the sleeve of her school uniform when she gave a pull and realised that the thread was not going to be enough. Now it was shorter than her little finger and there…
Cybonn Ang
December 17, 2019
Daughter, Seal © Josie Shapiro2018 SpringT3STORIES

Daughter, Seal

The year my parents died I married Nils Fisker, a big man with shoulders wide, arms strong from a life at sea, hair a sandy blonde. I lost Mama to a wintertime infection and Father didn't return from the winter journey to the ocean beyond the ice. He was sailing…
Josie Shapiro
November 7, 2018
Field © Kevin Rabalais2018 SpringT3STORIES

Field

There are no adverbs in Xoi. In their place, the lexicon permutates a series of agglutinative super-verbs. Many of these super-verbs are in common use, and the creation of new lexical items is no rare feat. Children with only a few years of speech do so. These super-verbs give the…
Danny Lam
November 7, 2018
Whales © Kevin Rabalais2018 SpringT3STORIES

Whales

The cinderblock toilets were painted a childish blue, a ribbon unfurling. The grey heads of whales and their tails, shaped like upturned anchors, broke the surface. Each head had a single black eye, drawn in a straight stroke. Every so often, a drooping m had been painted in white. I…
Anna Woods
November 7, 2018
Wings 2017 SpringT3STORIES

Wings

My father offered to drive me to the Interschool Cultural Festival where I had been semi-coerced into performing as a ‘Riverdancer’. This was not the sort of duty Dad usually took time off for. The last time he attended anything school-related was a soccer game back in fourth form when…
Di Starrenburg
November 17, 2017