Grass, willow, skin – by Ben Walter
Nonfiction Ben Walter Nonfiction Ben Walter

Grass, willow, skin – by Ben Walter

The wind is blowing off the dead of the river and every gust is hollowing out my body. Even though it's summer and the evenings are spending all the light they've been saving up through the year, it's freezing cold – I am eleven years old and there is nothing to me, my arms and legs are an arrangement of twigs, and the creeping ice is threatening to snap my body into pieces. The sense of arctic nakedness, of shivering in the outfield of a skewed oval, is all pervasive…

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The only fish – by Ben Walter
Nonfiction Ben Walter Nonfiction Ben Walter

The only fish – by Ben Walter

The first fish I catch as a child is a flathead. I’m leaning over the side of the boat with my red toy fishing rod, mind drifting wherever a tiny mind does, when I notice a fish at the end of the white string line. Confused, I turn to my dad. ‘Is that … the bait?’ I ask, before seeing that it is a real, actual flathead, and I have somehow caught it.

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Snakes in the valleys, in their hair – by Ben Walter
Nonfiction Ben Walter Nonfiction Ben Walter

Snakes in the valleys, in their hair – by Ben Walter

Once, I was walking on a ridge and lightning was sparkling peaks to the east and the west, while a white spear of cloud hurtled straight for us. We found the top of the mountain, felt its texture through our boots, stared at the views, then turned and ran through an explosion of rain that was dark in the fury of its clouds, that swapped the sweat from our faces with its own jealous wet. Going was the only thing to do, but it still felt a terrible idea, because we’d have to leave the top of the mountain. There were still views. We could still see.

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