Mark's diary

22Oct

The Voice I Refused

I wanted Ellis’s breathing more than I wanted to admit. For one second, the radio gave me something solid, and I nearly stepped back toward the wharf without th…

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21Oct

The Radio Stayed Silent

I am still thinking about the empty boots on the seat. It was cheap, theatrical, and it worked. I am ashamed that I enjoyed Rhys turning around, even briefly. S…

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20Oct

The Part I Stopped

I gave up the fight before my body did. That is the part I keep turning over. Dain had me by the collar, and I could still feel the old choice rising in me: mak…

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19Oct

What the Crate Remembered

Three sets of initials should not have been enough to bother me. The names themselves mean nothing, but someone painted them neatly beneath the ramp, expecting…

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18Oct

What I Kept From Bellwether

I hate losing by a hand’s width. Worse, I hate being told the win bought me nothing while the rain was still in my eyes. I could have put Silas down harder. May…

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16Oct

The answer I still refuse

Ellis is alive. That changes the shape of everything, even if I cannot say what the shape is yet. The men who built this lie needed bodies to make silence look…

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15Oct

Hands Off the Wheel

I hate when someone uses my gear to make a threat feel more official. The blue float was childish, but it was mine, and someone thought that gave them permissio…

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14Oct

Facts Sitting in the Rain

I keep returning to the moment the watcher dropped his binoculars. He did not startle me; that would have been cleaner. He decided. There was a calculation in i…

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13Oct

The Nails Kept Holding

I keep thinking about the space between the pallet and my body. Inches. That is such a stupidly small number for a life to survive by. I was frightened, but I w…

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12Oct

Keeping the torn corner

The first thing I felt wasn’t triumph. It was the sick little drop in my stomach when I recognised the compound code. For a second I wanted to put the docket ba…

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11Oct

The thing I didn't stop

The ute smells like takeaway grease and cold air. Counter meal at the Southport pub, two minutes of chewing, then the records. I keep the receipt because it say…

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10Oct

Third place and a wave-off

Jules counted nine hundred on their feet. I didn't look up until the last ten seconds because looking up meant looking at the banner and looking at the banner m…

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9Oct

The thing I didn't do

The video is already up. Three phones, two hands flat on my chest, me staggering two steps into the ropes. I didn't throw back. That's the part I keep seeing —…

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8Oct

The shoulder knows first

“Hayes shoulder giving up?” Four words, and suddenly every quiet catch feels like evidence. I can call it clickbait, but my body took it personally. That hitch…

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7Oct

Gifted

Four extra rounds. That's what the blog bought me. Reno Mathers sits at home with a hand infection telling some sad nobody that I got the main event because the…

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6Oct

Five minutes in a corridor

The shoulder clicked. Actually clicked, in front of the two clerks at the tribunal desk. Lacey heard it or didn't hear it — I don't know which is worse. "Broke…

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5Oct

I filed my own breach report

The ranger took my details and I thanked him. Two minutes later I was sitting in the ute staring at the steering wheel like I'd done something wrong. I hadn't.…

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4Oct

Floor cracker diplomacy

The brie dried on my cuff for three hours before I noticed. That's the kind of detail that would make Lou laugh if I ever told her, which I won't. I picked the…

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3Oct

Receipt still in the pocket

The brie memory. That's what I keep calling it even though it's not brie, it's just the way she held her hand there. Palms flat on the ribs like it was nothing,…

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2Oct

the recorder was running

The window catch sound. That's what it was. Like something shutting and the air rushing in after. Except it was the front of my own shoulder and I dropped into…

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1Oct

The envelope on the counter

Tom Vass forwarded my rehab sheet to every man I used to swim beside. "Concern for a mate." That's what he wrote. Like he was the good guy in this. Like the guy…

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29Sep

The envelope, the scale, the call

Carly saw my face before I said anything. That part I didn't like. Seven a.m. in the corridor, Lou holding that thing out like a test, and I could feel my jaw l…

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28Sep

Our boy swims again

I read that subject line three times before I understood it was about me. "Our boy swims again." Gary Weldon still thinks I'm his. The whole 2004 list still thi…

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27Sep

The cut knows the same road

The cut reopened in the same place. Same place. I sat on the apron and watched Jules work and thought about how my body apparently has a signature now, a prefer…

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26Sep

The Arm Is Not the Whole Story

I keep trying to sort the damage into useful and useless. The elbow is useful if it gives me a reason to be angry. Brayden is useful if I can turn him into a ta…

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25Sep

Her hand stayed

Filing again. I stood in the gym and asked Danny to file a breach on Lou Cassar's name like it was a phone complaint all over again. Same envelope, different pa…

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24Sep

Same one, sharper

The sub-floor at Apex has a soft seam where the panels meet. I knew about it. I planted my lead foot on it anyway because Danny's script needed the symmetry — r…

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22Sep

Eight Seconds, No Swing

The shoulder voted twice and I keep replaying which two shots. Not because Danny will ask — he'll ask tomorrow. Because I'm the only one who knows the differenc…

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21Sep

the sink and the envelope

The sink. That's the part I keep coming back to. Not the ankle — the ankle held, we ran ten pull-counters in round four and I didn't feel it twist again. The si…

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20Sep

change-room door, sixteen

I said it. Actually said it this morning at the sink with the tap running and Carly behind me holding the Manila envelope. Yeah. I cried. Behind the change-room…

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