Creative Writing
Each year, the City of Casey runs the Fresh Words Young Writers Competition. This year, they received over 160 remarkable entries in Creative Writing and Poetry/Lyrics from talented young writers in grades 5 to 12. The judges were deeply impressed by the overall standard of submissions, demonstrating incredible creativity and unique voices.
Nossal is proud to acknowledge these students whose writing was shortlisted for the top 3 prizes: Medha Manikandan, Devmika Bogahapitiya ,Thiseni Senanayake, Tashi Mallawa, Bobby Bhatia, Anojii Suthakaran and Methuki Bogahapitiya.
Special mention goes to Amna Bilal (Merit award, Creative Writing), Thiseni Senanayake (Encouragement Award, poetry) and to Bobby Bhatia who won first place for his poem '841’.
841
The 841 lurches forward
I sink into the seat, feeling the imprint of strangers before me
Outside, Cranny drags itself along
Grey, smeared, unbothered by the ghosts that inhabit it
I don’t watch
I already know what’s there
841 keeps moving
Across from me, a couple devours each other
Mouths fused, ravenous, clawing, consuming, engulfing
I breathe
Is oxygen a privilege here?
Obscene it is
Desperation masquerading as intimacy
I avert my gaze
How can anyone endure such suffocating proximity?
How can anyone crave it?
Their bodies blur
An amorphous mass of grasping limbs
Feral in their need to devour
I want to escape this moment
But
841 keeps moving
A cluster of boys in the back blares Carti
His voice serrated, distorted, hypnotic
The bassline quivers, pulsates, as if it alone is alive.
The boys?
"Carti dropped, Carti dropped”
They nod with the reverence of disciples
As if they have unearthed something sacred
As if this is a revelation
But they are as they were yesterday
Same
The sound is new
They are not
841 is not
And
841 keeps moving
Ray Bastin Reserve
They board - two parents, two children
Huddled together in an intimacy that is not chosen, but necessitated
The father clasps the metal pole
Fingers wrapped so tightly
The mother presses a Myki to the scanner - red light.
She fumbles for another
And tries again - red light.
She looks at the driver
The driver observes
He knows
We all do
The children stand between them
Too young to comprehend
Too old to feign ignorance
No car. No choice.
Just the bus -A purgatorial loop of monotony
A testament to deprivation
Cranny swallows them whole
And still
841 keeps moving
A schoolgirl in the back scrolls infinitely A lifeless glow reflected in her irises
A man in a suit stabs at his 16 Pro -His fingers twitching, his jaw rigid
Two boys jostle each other
Their laughter - jagged
One stumbles, falls on a middle-aged woman
No apology, no reaction
No care
They just keep moving
Just like how
841 keeps moving
I see my distorted reflection
- A spectre in the scratched glass
My own face unfamiliar -Or perhaps too familiar
Eyes hollowed, skin washed-out
A body that folds into itself
Insignificant, blended in
I rest my forehead against the glass
Cold
I see the other 841 outside, moving toward Narrie North
I guess
841 keeps moving
Sierra Boulevard
Someone stumbles on, muttering profanities at the rain
Someone else slams the stop button, as if it could force an ending
The ending being the next stop
And the next stop never comes
And maybe that’s the reason:
The couple keeps entangling
The man keeps typing
The girl keeps scrolling
The family keeps lamenting
The driver keeps driving
841 keeps moving
I liked the rain right now
But I did not like - The way people avert their eyes.
The way no one taps on.
The way we sit - Waiting, pretending, enduring.
I check my Myki online43 cents left
I forgot tap on
Everyone does
I walk off staring at the driver’s indifferent glance -
Silent
He would say something
There was care
But there wasn’t at the same time
I leave and see
The bus stopping at Courtenay Avenue
And see it take off
And see how
841 keeps moving
And so do we