Spent part of this week thinking about the moment people mean when they talk about escaping — the jacked-in job, the rented-out house, the goodbyes at the airport — and what it actually feels like when you finally get there and have to step off.

Darren has been building up to this ledge for months. He’s burnt out, he’s crossed the world, and now he’s standing at the top of a gorge in the Territory while an Australian in a cork hat tells him tall tales about crocodiles and knife-fights in the queue. It’s a very short story — you’ll read it in about the time it takes to fall. Fair warning: it carries a content advisory, and it earns it.

Read it on Kindle, alongside nineteen other stories

G. H. Schreiber

27/09/2026