AntipodeanSF Issue 312

By Samuel Teoh

He was a man with many aspirations of self-reliance and had lived up to none of them, leaving the impression of not a man but the shell of one. He sat at his desk with his head hanging between slim shoulders, hunched over a computer that was too old to be new, but too new to be thrown away. Perhaps, the man thought, I’ll buy a new computer tomorrow. He’d said that yesterday.

The man’s gaunt and grey hands moved automatically across the keyboard, letter after letter, word after word, paragraph after paragraph. His eyes wandered over the words he’d written, absorbing the letters and not the meaning. There was no meaning, anyway, he thought; I am in the middle of the paper, with no direction and no purpose. No meaning… The middle-aged man had to remind himself what had no meaning — the paper, of course, of course.

The man adjusted his glasses perched on his beaked nose, rubbed the hair on his balding head, and read the same line for the fourth time. Was it the fourth time? Or the hundredth? The man had lost count — he wasn’t counting in the first place anyway.

***

It was midnight.

“I want a divorce,” his wife said.

He did not register her words yet, marvelling at how he used to have to look down at his wife — now it felt like she was staring down at him from a very, very high place. Maybe it was something in her eyes, the man thought.

“What?” he said.

“I want a divorce,” his wife said again. The four words inked themselves into the man’s brain like the four words he’d asked her eighteen years ago when he was young.

***

It was a quarter past midnight. He sat there, hunched and empty, on a bed that was no longer theirs but his. She’d tried to close the front door behind her quietly but the click had echoed through the empty house — empty because he was no longer a man but a shell. Maybe he never was a man.

Was it last week? The day he’d walked out of his office and saw his wife with a man who kissed her like how a husband would kiss his wife. The woman kissed him back. Young, the middle-aged man thought. The young man and woman walked up the steps to a young and beautiful house and closed the door behind them. Click

The click reverberated through his bones. It resounded in his head. The man stepped into their — no — his closet and closed the door behind him. Click. He pulled open his drawer and took out a gun he’d bought to kill intruders. But maybe the only person who didn’t belong was himself.

The tip of the gun pressed against the side of his head. He cocked the gun. The click of the hammer on the revolver clicked like the click when the woman closed the door on the empty house. He cocked the gun again, just to hear the click. He thought for a second about the paper he’d left unfinished, the one he was still in the middle of — but it was meaningless anyway. What was meaningless? No, not his paper — his life.

***

It was half past midnight. 

This is the end, he said. Laughed. 

The middle-aged man was still crying when

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About the Author

samuel teoh 300Samuel Teoh is a high schooler in Taiwan.

He loves to drink bubble tea, listen to K-pop, and read/write stories in his free time.

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Issue Contributors

The AntiSF Radio Show

antipod-show-50Our weekly podcast features the stories from recently published issues, often narrated by the authors themselves.

Listen to the latest episode now:

The AntipodeanSF Radio Show is also broadcast on community radio, 2NVR, 105.9FM every Sunday evening at 7:00pm.

You can find every broadcast episode online here: http://antisf.libsyn.com 

Meet the Narrators

  • Carolyn Eccles

    carolyn eccles 100

    Carolyn's work spans devising, performance, theatre-in-education and a collaborative visual art practice.

    She tours children's works to schools nationally with School Performance Tours, is a member of the Bathurst physical theatre ensemble Lingua Franca and one half of darkroom —

    ...
  • Alistair Lloyd

    alistair lloyd 200Alistair Lloyd is a Melbourne based writer and narrator who has been consuming good quality science fiction and fantasy most of his life.

    You may find him on Twitter as <@mr_al> and online at <...

  • Sarah Pratt

    sarah pratt 200Sarah Pratt is an avid fiction writer and a Marketing Consultant.

    She is currently working on her first novel but loves diving into short stories to bring a little lightness, intrigue or humour to the day.

    Her work has appeared in Sponge Magazine and The Commuting

    ...
  • Geraldine Borella

    geraldine borella 200Geraldine Borella writes fiction for children, young adults and adults. Her work has been published by Deadset Press, IFWG Publishing, Wombat Books/Rhiza Edge, AHWA/Midnight Echo, Antipodean SF, Shacklebound Books, Black Ink Fiction, Paramour Ink Fiction, House of Loki and Raven & Drake

    ...
  • Tim Borella

    tim borellaTim Borella is an Australian author, mainly of short speculative fiction published in anthologies, online and in podcasts.

    He’s also a songwriter, and has been fortunate enough to have spent most of his working life doing something else he loves, flying.

    Tim lives with his wife Georgie in beautiful Far

    ...
  • Mark English

    mark english 100Mark is an astrophysicist and space scientist who worked on the Cassini/Huygens mission to Saturn. Following this he worked in computer consultancy, engineering, and high energy research (with a stint at the JET Fusion Torus).

    All this science hasn't damped his love of fantasy and science fiction. It has, however, ruined his

    ...
  • Ed Errington

    ed erringtonEd lives with his wife plus a magical assortment of native animals in tropical North Queensland.

    His efforts at wallaby wrangling are without parallel — at least in this universe.

    He enjoys reading and writing science-fiction stories set within intriguing, yet plausible contexts, and invite readers’ “willing suspension of

    ...
  • Sarah Jane Justice

    Sarah Jane Justice 200Sarah Jane Justice is an Adelaide-based fiction writer, poet, musician and spoken word artist.

    Among other achievements, she has performed in the National Finals of the Australian Poetry Slam, released two albums of her original music and seen her poetry

    ...
  • Chuck McKenzie

    chuck mckenzie 200Chuck McKenzie was born in 1970, and still spends much of his time there.

    He also runs the YouTube channel 'A Touch of the Terrors', where — as 'Uncle Charles' — he performs readings of his favourite horror tales in a manner that makes most ham actors

    ...
  • Merri Andrew

    merri andrew 200Merri Andrew writes poetry and short fiction, some of which has appeared in Cordite, Be:longing, Baby Teeth and Islet, among other places.

    She has been a featured artist for the Noted festival, won a Red Room #30in30 daily poetry challenge and was shortlisted for the

    ...
  • Marg Essex

    marg essex 200Margaret lives the good life on a small piece of rural New South Wales Australia, with an amazing man, a couple of pets, and several rambunctious wombats.

    She feels so lucky to be a part of the AntiSF team.

    ...

  • Michelle Walker

    michelle walker32My time at Nambucca Valley Community Radio began back in 2016 after moving into the area from Sydney.

    As a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, I recognised it was definitely God who opened up the pathways for my husband and I to settle in the Valley.

    Within

    ...
  • Laurie Bell

    lauriebell 2 200

    Laurie Bell lives in Melbourne, Australia and is the author of "The Stones of Power Series" via Wyvern's Peak Publishing: "The Butterfly Stone", "The Tiger's Eye" and "The Crow's Heart" (YA/Fantasy).

    She is also the author of "White Fire" (Sci-Fi) and "The Good, the Bad and the Undecided" (a

    ...
  • Barry Yedvobnick

    barry yedvobnick 200Barry Yedvobnick is a recently retired Biology Professor. He performed molecular biology and genetic research, and taught, at Emory University in Atlanta for 34 years. He is new to fiction writing, and enjoys taking real science a step or two beyond its known boundaries in his

    ...
  • Emma Gill

    Emma Louise GillEmma Louise Gill (she/her) is a British-Australian spec fic writer and consumer of vast amounts of coffee. Brought up on a diet of English lit, she rebelled and now spends her time writing explosive space opera and other fantastical things in

    ...