17/02/2026, New Moon in Aquarius
This year I’m going to stop hating white girls who look like woodland creatures and who have the right head shape for pixie cuts. They’ve always been kind to me and they can’t help being beautiful. This one-sided hatred is distracting me from hobbies and other meaningful activities, like beading or finding love.
This year I’m going to stop hating white girls who look like woodland creatures and who have the right head shape for pixie cuts. They’ve always been kind to me and they can’t help being beautiful. This one-sided hatred is distracting me from hobbies and other meaningful activities, like beading or finding love.
Jaunty late-night shopping channel music plays OVER DARK. EXT. DESERT METROPOLIS – DAY A dust storm whips across a cramped roundabout intersection with a glass-domed monument in the centre. On each street corner is an identical beige-toned highrise with a clock tower, their names and purposes spelt in extrabold serif writing: NATIONAL DICTIONARY, CONSTRUCTION SAFETY MITIGATION, PHARMACEUTICAL ENTERPRISES AND REGULATION, and DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION. The buildings are connected by a network of skybridges. Smatterings of brave pedestrians rush across these, covering their faces with scarves and sleeves. Below, brown, blue, yellow GAZ and Datsun sedans crawl along packed lanes of traffic, their windscreen wipers working overtime. Inside, the drivers are glassy-eyed. DISSOLVE TO:
Jem makes sure to really punch the page at that last full stop to say, so mote it be.
It feels good to take accountability for one’s feelings, to turn something ugly, like jealousy and resentment, into something that aligns with the relationship anarchy content that they share online with great zest.
It also feels good to have an analogue journal. Jem sets down the first and only tree they’ve touched today to rest their eyes.
On his Hinge profile, Carnelian says he ‘Won’t Shut Up About hiver mordu (1973)’. Having already spent their Mubi free trial on a different cinephile during a separate (failed) romantic endeavour, Jem is relieved to have found one working torrent file for tonight’s homework.
Jem’s housemate Mara texts them a photo from their former neighbour Posy’s gig. Earlier that day, they had disagreed on whether an Instagram story that says ‘if you’re seeing this you should come’ counted as a genuine invite. Jem decided they weren’t really welcome since Posy didn’t text them personally. Mara berated them for being a big dumb baby and went to the gig on her own. Jem now thinks that maybe Mara made the better choice but feels too much like a loser to show up halfway through the show.
They lift the Kiwi Strawberry IGET from their cracking lips. Runs their tongue over the chemical-dried skin and stuffs the vape under a couch cushion to create a barrier for temptation. However, before the title sequence has finished, they are already cleaning couch lint from the mouthpiece. If we’re going to spiral tonight, we may as well lean into it.
INT. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION – NINETEENTH FLOOR – LADIES’ BATHROOMS – DAY The walls are pink, with rosettes embossed in the ceiling trim. The tap closest to the wall is leaking. GARDENER (30-something), a flustered-looking woman in a brown houndstooth skirt suit, pushes her headband back and forth to find the right placement.GARDENER (V.O.) (suddenly remembering) That’s right—I must pass on Mrs Kinney’s memo about the Women’s Day fair and the Bright Young Girls program. Gosh, my scatterbrain. Sometimes one feels like she works in a casino, with all these overhead lights and no clocks. There’s an itch at the back of her neck she can’t reach. She spots a bowl of rose petals in the corner, propped on a very fake stone plinth.GARDENER (V.O.) Now what’s that supposed to do? Besides, it’s the mid-to-late 20th century, there’s no shame in doing a smelly poo.
Carnelian:
haha cool
tell me what u think after
Jem:
loving it already
The fact that ‘Carnelian’ can’t be
this random cis white guy’s real name actually makes his whole deal kind of trans if you
think about it. Before him, Jem had spent a few days scraping the bottom of the barrel and
sending okay-guess-you’ll-do likes, but it hurts even more when the freaks don’t want to match with you.
Desperate people can end up doing some very strange things. Or as the Chinese idiom says, a
cornered dog will jump over the wall.
And over this proverbial wall is where Jem landed on Carnelian. Turns out it’s worth putting your dignity on the line to send someone your weekly Rose. He looks like a guy who doesn’t wash under his fingernails (but does) between hardcore band practice, walking the staffies, and an 8-hour shift at the pub. He’s got a tattoo of a lobster smoking a cigarette that looks like it was done by an apprentice with their non-dominant hand. He would be perfect for Jem’s self-esteem issues.
She rips out the headband and washes her hands, reaching for a bar of soap that’s not there. She stares in alarm at the glass container mounted to the wall with its metal dispenser.GARDENER (V.O.) How had I forgotten that we switched out the bar soap? How long have I been in this building? She walks over to the window and looks out. DOLLY ZOOM on her horrified face as she discovers that: EXT. DESERT METROPOLIS – DAY The sky is blue, cloudless, the glass dome replaced with a giant tree whose branches wrap around and choke the four now-derelict skyscrapers. The weeds have reclaimed the roads. There is no-one about.
Jem’s friend Lachie often reminds them that although men sometimes like when you’re mean to them, they mostly prefer when you’re nice to them. Jem reckons Agree to Disagree.
Jem:
im talking to this guy on Hinge and
have u seen this movie called hiver mordu
from the 70s
Lachie:
yea i love it its great
Jem:
is it actually great or is it white guy movie great
as a white guy
how do u want me to answer that question
Jem:
idk just like
is it one of those long movies that say nothing
also its made by an asian woman btw
& queer
i think ud actually like it
Jem:
ok so you just love this movie bc it was made by an asian lesbian
Read
Jem:
do u want to see his profile
INT. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION – NINETEENTH FLOOR – LADIES’ BATHROOMS – DAY Gardener stumbles back in shock. She blinks. EXT. DESERT METROPOLIS – DAY The city returns to the polluted brown she knows (and loves). Then, just as quickly and before her eyes, the city changes to: EXT. DESERT METROPOLIS – DAY A roiling ocean. INT. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION – NINETEENTH FLOOR – LADIES’ BATHROOMS – DAY Gardener screams. She falls out of the open window and to her death. TITLE CARD: hiver mordu
@carnel1an isn’t hard to find in the real world. His Monday post-dinner-slot radio show @magic.spring shares acclaim with his band, @AllExpenses.Paid__. The band is playing in Wollongong next week. None of this is shocking. Looking at his Instagram now, it seems his Hinge photos are from a few haircuts ago, which Jem finds surprisingly vulnerable and endearing.
Jem lands on a photo dump from 17 May 2023, where he Slav-squats onstage next to a disgustingly hot, naturally twinkly-eyed person in a mini dress and fluffy boots, with a pixie cut that doesn’t make them look like Penny Wong.
The top comment reads:
Jem lands on a photo dump from 17 May 2023, where he Slav-squats onstage next to a disgustingly hot, naturally twinkly-eyed person in a mini dress and fluffy boots, with a pixie cut that doesn’t make them look like Penny Wong.
The top comment reads:
cutiesssss <3 love u connor & mani
EXT. DESERT METROPOLIS – INTERSECTION – DAY FAST ZOOM TO EXTREME CLOSE-UP on a pair of feet in lime green buckle heels as they trip over Gardner’s splayed, broken body. Gardener’s POV: A young woman with a bright pink bob that ends in upward curls. This is LIMERICK (early 20s), a spunky, go-big-or-go-home kind of gal. Limerick cuts in before Gardener finishes each sentence.
‘Mani’ has a sparse profile consisting of one blurred image of a mountain from 2019. But they seem happy to be tagged.
In addition to co-hosting @magic.spring on Monday nights, Imani @1maniiii_ninini (they/them) is a registered nurse at an Inner East LGBTQIA+ sexual health clinic.
Imani and Connor’s friendship group consists mostly of beautiful femme genderdiverse DJs. Connor is the only white guy.
Imani’s lips really suit their vertical labret piercing. Imani has a cat who loves them. Imani performed their solo project at Phoenix Central Park, Imani and cousins went to a party in Amman, Imani boycotted Boiler Room. Imani is a federal arts funding recipient. By comparison, Connor is just some garden variety punter.
In addition to co-hosting @magic.spring on Monday nights, Imani @1maniiii_ninini (they/them) is a registered nurse at an Inner East LGBTQIA+ sexual health clinic.
Imani and Connor’s friendship group consists mostly of beautiful femme genderdiverse DJs. Connor is the only white guy.
Imani’s lips really suit their vertical labret piercing. Imani has a cat who loves them. Imani performed their solo project at Phoenix Central Park, Imani and cousins went to a party in Amman, Imani boycotted Boiler Room. Imani is a federal arts funding recipient. By comparison, Connor is just some garden variety punter.
LIMERICK (overexcited) Well??? GARDENER I am in so much pain. LIMERICK Hey, I got a question for you. GARDENER Everything hurts so much. LIMERICK What did the left shoe say to the right shoe? Gardener writhes on the ground.LIMERICK (CONT’D) Come on, get up. I have to go see all the other newbies. Limerick pulls Gardener to her feet. Gardener takes her in properly: Limerick’s body is lopsided, the left side entirely dislocated. Her neck is broken, and she wears a tyre around it to keep her head upright. Dried blood patches cling to her face like barnacles.
Notification
CARNELIAN CONNOR THE QUEERBAITER:
My friend is playing at a fundraiser
see more
My friend is playing at a fundraiser
see more
Yeah yeah yeah. Your friend’s
playing at a fundraiser. Jem swipes the preview away while continuing down @1maniiii_ninini’s grid, familiarising themself with @b1n_____nite, @DarlinghurstRoadVietnamese_andMixedBusiness and @swamp.lake_’s facial piercing configurations and zooming in on their calves. This endeavour proves to Jem that they are the only person in the world with such a small calf-to-ankle ratio.
Jem is googling ‘are cankles hereditary’ when the front door unlocks. Mara doesn’t bother to look down the corridor:
‘Have you been sitting there the whole day?’
Jem shouts: ‘Do I have cankles?’
Mara is already in her bedroom and on the phone.
Jem is googling ‘are cankles hereditary’ when the front door unlocks. Mara doesn’t bother to look down the corridor:
‘Have you been sitting there the whole day?’
Jem shouts: ‘Do I have cankles?’
Mara is already in her bedroom and on the phone.
GARDENER What happened to your neck? Limerick is distracted. The clock tower on the NATIONAL DICTIONARY building chimes four times. Limerick looks towards the sound.LIMERICK Hang on. I gotta go jump again. I’ll tell you after. GARDENER No! Limerick smiles like a man in a horror movie whose loving wife tells him not to go check where that noise is coming from.LIMERICK I won’t be long. If you want to watch, the view’s better from there. She points to a nearby bench. Gardener staggers over, still picking glass from her skin. Limerick blows a kiss to Gardener from the rooftop. Then, she spins and drops backwards off the building.
It’s hard to tell whether Imani’s coupled. Jem considers a crowd photo from a queer dance
event in November, where Imani is a dot in a sea of gleaming bodies, either making out or
smiling mouth-to-mouth with a pink-haired girl. Okay, Jem thinks to themself, gay, but retracts the thought when they notice that in 2019, Imani was photographed at a protest, holding hands with some skinny guy called Stewart.
As if on cue, the hoodie string Jem has been chewing for the last half hour starts to taste really bad. This physical discomfort triggers a pang of empathy for what looks like a pretty sorry dating history on Imani’s part. Jem imagines having to save someone from campus socialism and is briefly moved to tears.
As if on cue, the hoodie string Jem has been chewing for the last half hour starts to taste really bad. This physical discomfort triggers a pang of empathy for what looks like a pretty sorry dating history on Imani’s part. Jem imagines having to save someone from campus socialism and is briefly moved to tears.
EXT. GLASS DOME – DAY Limerick and Gardener are laying on top of the glass dome, watching people pass over the skybridge. A WOMAN helps HER ELDERLY MOTHER up at the zebra crossing as a luxury SUV speeds away. The older woman’s legs are basically pulp. The younger woman has a significant head wound. Limerick studies them. Gardener studies Limerick.GARDENER Do you have to do this every day? LIMERICK What did the left shoe say to the right shoe? GARDENER I don’t know. LIMERICK Yes, you have to jump every day. You don’t need know your time of death, but it helps. Did you see the clock on your way down? GARDENER No.
@read.queers posted:
Politically, I ought to find [cis-heteronormative] ideals repellent. And in one sense, I do. Yet, I must confess, it has also infiltrated the unconscious longings and expectations that shape my desires. I catch myself fantasising that I might be happier being under a man’s care or protection or being defined principally in relation to him…the truth remains that I am a published writer of work on queer politics who sometimes secretly wonders if happiness does look like marrying a man who will look after me.
—SHON FAYE, Love in Exile
Politically, I ought to find [cis-heteronormative] ideals repellent. And in one sense, I do. Yet, I must confess, it has also infiltrated the unconscious longings and expectations that shape my desires. I catch myself fantasising that I might be happier being under a man’s care or protection or being defined principally in relation to him…the truth remains that I am a published writer of work on queer politics who sometimes secretly wonders if happiness does look like marrying a man who will look after me.
Nice one. Jem clicks ‘share to story’.
LIMERICK (exasperated) Come on. What did the left shoe say to the right shoe? GARDENER I have no clue. LIMERICK You really don’t know? Gardener shakes her head. Limerick sighs.LIMERICK That’s what I’m supposed to be figuring out here. Until then I gotta keep jumping. GARDENER Why’d you jump in the first place? Limerick produces a crumpled photograph from her pocket. An Alain Delon lookalike leaning against a motorbike, throwing a peace sign at the camera.LIMERICK He left me for a girl who looks just like you. GARDENER Sorry. LIMERICK What for? It wasn’t you. … Was it you? GARDENER No… I don’t think so? I really hope not. LIMERICK Have you ever been the other woman? Gardener hesitates.LIMERICK (CONT’D) Come on. I know it wasn’t you. GARDENER Yes. My college teacher’s husband. He got me my job at the Department of Education.
Jem boots up their favourite Apple
App Store game, Perfect My Beautiful Life. The game storyline’s latest dishevelled and truly pathetic charity case wants to know how you plan on fixing her matted, bleach-damaged hair. Will you:
Jem earns 12 painstaking coins after using all their lives and watching an ad for a farming sim. They have a fleeting thought that Perfect My Beautiful Life might be targeting people who feel wronged and helpless in their own lives, that the gameplay might even be rigged to encourage in-app purchases so that in order to make the more conventionally-favourable choice (colour-correcing toner over janky buzzcut), the player must sink money or time into a game addiction that results in avoiding the very tasks that would improve their real-life condition: having a hot shower, mopping the floors.
Instead of pursuing this thought, Jem ends up on hairspo Pinterest, which leads them to the Instagram account of a Sydney-based modelling agency where they inevitably—and here’s the killer—run into Imani again.
It is Jem’s belief that every genderqueer person struggles with one aspect of their appearance that is incoherent with the rest of their look. Jem’s Australian Foreign Minister haircut is still too fresh to be salvaged and ruins every outfit they try on. They tried a buzz with bold colour back in 2020 like everyone else in Marrickville and hated it. And long hair just looks like a wig.
They meditate on how unfair it is that Imani doesn’t have to change their hair or their name to look right because they are extremely beautiful and have the best facial features for everything. Jem then decides that Imani can’t consider themself a prominent member of this community because they don’t participate in The Queer Struggle of Self-Reinvention and have never been ugly.
- Apply a colour-correcting toner? (500 coins)
- Shave all her hair off? (2 coins)
- Give her a beanie? (300 coins)
Jem earns 12 painstaking coins after using all their lives and watching an ad for a farming sim. They have a fleeting thought that Perfect My Beautiful Life might be targeting people who feel wronged and helpless in their own lives, that the gameplay might even be rigged to encourage in-app purchases so that in order to make the more conventionally-favourable choice (colour-correcing toner over janky buzzcut), the player must sink money or time into a game addiction that results in avoiding the very tasks that would improve their real-life condition: having a hot shower, mopping the floors.
Instead of pursuing this thought, Jem ends up on hairspo Pinterest, which leads them to the Instagram account of a Sydney-based modelling agency where they inevitably—and here’s the killer—run into Imani again.
It is Jem’s belief that every genderqueer person struggles with one aspect of their appearance that is incoherent with the rest of their look. Jem’s Australian Foreign Minister haircut is still too fresh to be salvaged and ruins every outfit they try on. They tried a buzz with bold colour back in 2020 like everyone else in Marrickville and hated it. And long hair just looks like a wig.
They meditate on how unfair it is that Imani doesn’t have to change their hair or their name to look right because they are extremely beautiful and have the best facial features for everything. Jem then decides that Imani can’t consider themself a prominent member of this community because they don’t participate in The Queer Struggle of Self-Reinvention and have never been ugly.
Limerick pulls out another piece of paper——a clipping from Bachelor’s Home Journal (1971 issue). The image is of a busty woman in a red latex one-piece leaning over a chair, motorboating a suited man and winking at the camera over the man’s ecstatic, flailing limbs.LIMERICK Isn’t she something. GARDENER I would cheat on my wife too if I met her. Gardener thinks for a second.GARDENER And you think I look like her?
Carnelian:
My friend is playing at a fundraiser
this wed
would be nice if u wanted to come
Jem looks up from their screen and leans forward. The video quality in this section has degraded from decades of rewinding by audiences of all genders trying to get a better look at the only sexually explicit scene in the film.
Carnelian:
hows the movie going
The air grows denser. In the next room, Mara is listening to a Femcels song:
He needs me so bad
He literally needs me
He needs me
He needs me
He needs me
He needs me
Being on the receiving end of a Double Text cures every malady and malaise. Maybe Jem’s hair is okay the way it is.
He needs me so bad
He literally needs me
He needs me
He needs me
He needs me
He needs me
Being on the receiving end of a Double Text cures every malady and malaise. Maybe Jem’s hair is okay the way it is.
A yellow school bus tumbles over the lane divider, screeching, and rams into the CONSTRUCTION SAFETY MITIGATION building. Gardener screams. Limerick just waits it out. A moment later, a group of bloodied and battered PRIMARY SCHOOL STUDENTS clamber out of the smoking bus carcass and resume their two-by-two trudge down the sidewalk.GARDENER It doesn’t make any sense. They didn’t ask for this to happen. LIMERICK Well, neither did you. EXT. STREET CORNER – DAY Limerick and Gardener sit on plastic stools at a hawker stall and watch the traffic. Limerick’s wrist gets tired from propping up the tyre around her neck; she switches hands. Gardener reaches out to help, but the sudden movement startles Limerick. Limerick swats in defence.LIMERICK Hey! What the hell! GARDENER I was trying to help you. It looks heavy. LIMERICK Oh. Okay. Sorry. (from under her eyelashes) Thank you.
Notification
@1maniiii_ninini started following you.
liked by you and 37 others
@1maniiii_ninini started following you.
Jem is dizzy.
Under Imani’s only Instagram post—that picture of a mountain in Jordan from a family holiday seven years ago—are the words:
liked by you and 37 others
EXT. STREET CORNER – LATERLIMERICK Why did you jump? GARDENER I didn’t jump. I fell. LIMERICK How do you fall out of a building like that? GARDENER It was the strangest… For a second, the world was not as it always had been… I wanted to be a part of it, but I was so afraid. My feet didn’t know whether to go forward or back. And then it—
Still woozy from their panic vom, Jem decides that they might need to go off socials for a
while. They watch voiceover-narrated segments of The Favourite and Oscars Best
Actress acceptance speeches until their vision starts to blur and their sense of physicality
starts to feel lagged. They consider asking ChatGPT to summarise the rest of hiver mordu, but decide that they should probably have something more nuanced to say on their date.
Jem skips forward.
INT. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION BUILDING – EMPLOYEE ACCOMMODATION – DAY Limerick rubs Gardener’s shoulders.LIMERICK Are you ever going to tell me why you jumped?
17/02/2026, New Moon in Aquarius (continued)
Ways to oust Imani:
Ways to oust Imani:
- Get good music taste and then become a DJ and take all their gigs
- Get them cancelled for a Facebook status from 2013
- Catch them shopping at Cotton On
Jem considers the implications of so much negative thought. As a spiritual person who is attuned to the energies of the world, they believe that you can’t blow cinnamon through your doorway on the First of every month and spend the next three weeks shit-talking and spreading bad intentions. Only kindness and care during this Aquarius New Moon. They tear out the page and throw it away. It’s an incredible feeling of peace.
GARDENER I told you, I didn’t jump, I fell. Should we try and guess what the left shoe said to the right shoe? LIMERICK That’s not how it works. It’s meant to be like a secret code, and the right person just knows without needing to guess. GARDENER Do you know how silly that sounds? How are you supposed to know it’s the right answer if you don’t even know it yourself? LIMERICK Well, I could have worked it out if I didn’t spend all this time shacked up with you. They smile at each other.GARDENER Well, I’m not going anywhere any time soon. LIMERICK We might be the perfect pair. END
Lachie:
how are you liking the stupid white guy movie
Jem’s face is settled into a small, peaceful smile as they lay sound asleep to hiver mordu’s panflute motif.
Sometime around midnight:
@1maniiii_ninini liked your story.
Ren Jiang is a writer and theatre/filmmaker based in Eora. They have presented work with Cordite Poetry Review, un Projects, the Melbourne Theatre Company, the Melbourne Fringe Festival and more. This is their first short fiction publication!