Dale Lorna Jacobsen

Exerpt from "Dale's Story" in Menopause: women tell their stories (Wakefield Press 2008)

 "I walked from the lecture theatre in a daze; the whiteboard, filled with equations, etched into my brain and none of it made sense. I drifted into the library and found a desk in the corner. These corrals were well sought after. There you could spread out your books and lay down your head as if you had fallen asleep studying. You were rarely disturbed. I rested my flushed cheek on the cool wood but could not nod off. My nose was blocked; my brain was stuffed.

After a rest, I stowed my books into my backpack and, leaving the hum of student activity, walked through the forest track that led to the ring road surrounding the campus. I stopped, looked along the row of abandoned cars on either side of the road and could not, for the life of me, remember where I had parked that morning. I replayed leaving home, driving to uni, getting out of the car and locking the door.

I turned left and began walking. Half an hour later, I found my Mazda just fifty metres from where I had begun my search. I collapsed into the driver's seat and wondered who I was trying to kid."

Exerpt from "Railroaded" in Tales of the Great South East: A collection of prize-winning stories (Assegai Books 2006)

 "A wagon rolled through the open doorway and creaked to rest in the dust and gloom of the shed, awaiting repair to its weathered timbers. The workers here didn't have the luxury of transversers to move locos and rolling stock around like they did in the Ipswich workshops: they had to push them on sleepers, like something out of the ark.

Jack O'Leary pressed a pad of coarse grit glass paper to the coachwood door and moved it in circles, commencing the mind-numbing task of revealing the pinkish-brown timber beneath the peeling paint. Mind-numbing suited him today. He hadn't slept well last night, worrying about this evening's meeting. He kept one eye on the large round clock face above the doorway, willing its hands to move faster.

When the steam whistle finally released the workers from the Woolloongabba Goods Yards, Jack dipped into a forty-four gallon drum of water and scrubbed his face and forearms, then grabbed his hat and Gladstone bag, almost forgetting, in his rush, to replace his brass tag on its hook on the tag board."