By Jack Hipwood
I want to tell you how I became the best version of myself. It happened just last night. I was there, before the ocean, under mesmeric stars, down my steep suburban street, over a chain-link fence, across the width of an end-of-the-line railway track, up the mirroring fence, through an empty golf course, past reaching trees, dry leaves, sounding insects, and among flash-lit wetlands, unacknowledged by the white-fenced houses shielded by that journey. I was there, on aching legs, flyer in hand, seeking Carson, with a promotional hook piercing my skin and reeling me through: ‘Know What It Feels Like.’
Mud was beneath me and the ripe scent of mangroves was around me. I would occasionally freeze and swing my flashlight over a possum expecting a serious threat to my safety. I was constantly on the verge of rolling my ankle. Despite all this, I was pulled forward by the potential destruction of the following recurring scenes from my life:
Joshua and Krista enjoying a nice breakfast, days after Krista’s husband was killed by a drunk driver; Joshua says, “if it helps, I think I know how you feel—I’ve also had my car written off,” and Krista wails. Joshua, showing up to therapy empty-handed and spending $120/hr discussing courting and sports. Joshua, talking to a newly homeless friend about finding a place to live and asking, “why don’t you just get your parents to give you more pocket money?” Joshua, sitting down with a survivor of something he will never experience and focusing on, above all, making himself feel better about it.
I did not choose to be born into an unbroken home filled to the brim with money and people wearing the same colour skin as the majority. I did not choose to live a life without suffering. I would follow these statements up with an apology if I did not find the antidote to apologies out there—in a perfectly circular clearing in the mangroves in the form of the overexposed image of someone who had to be Carson, painted stark white by the light that he had no reaction to. He was a suited man, a clean-shaven man, sitting in a white plastic chair, leaning forward and resting his chin atop a rod of rebar that shot up out of the ground, hands clasped around the rod with eyes closed. The guiding literature—inexplicably slipped under my door a few days prior—had briefed me on what to do next. I went to Carson, silently proffering his requested object. Without looking up, he unfurled a palm away from the rod, and I placed the can of condensed milk onto it before pushing his fingers closed. He pulled this hand back behind his head, held it there, and then squeezed, annihilating the can. With immense force, he threw the mangled can out into the forest before shaking the residue from his hand with two flicks. The can maintained an impossible velocity and disappeared, spinning into the dark, its contents rendering a path of white splatters between the trees.
“Many blessings, Carson.”
I turned and ran in the direction of the splatters and can, my backpack and flashlight beam shaking in tandem. It should have come as no surprise that I was being led back the way I came instead of further into darkness. I gave breath-deprived chase along the trail of milk, until I was once again dirtying my polo against the wire fence of my local train station—and what Carson eventually led me to would turn out to be so filling that it may as well have been secreting that guiding trail of sweetened milk.
***
The streets of my town were silent save for their overbearing trees shaking in the ocean wind, and the occasional start and stop of rain. I am never out that late. A man on a bike rode past which was momentarily and entirely nerve-wracking. The white trail scattered on and on, through wide quiet streets, closed cafés and fish-and-chip shops, and a slanted side street just barely in hearing range of someone yelling. My yet-to-be-improved self became more nervous as I realised that, of course, the trail was pulling me towards the yelling. But fear was probably the whole point, so I kept on pushing myself uphill until I reached my prescribed destination.
There, looking right over the ocean, was a lucrative cut of real estate that I hadn’t noticed before, a highly dignified two-storey residence with bay windows jutting out to the left and a sprawling balcony hugging the front. I estimated that this ornate family home had a market value of 2.3 million dollars. Digressions aside, this was it. Down there from the street I could hear the sources of the yelling, a man and a woman of some kind. And there was the milk trail painted up the side of the house like a thrown rope that I supposed I now had to climb.
I wrecked a boot-print sized portion of their parti-coloured flower bed hauling myself over their front pickets, which are sharper than you’d expect, and looked at the climb requested of me. This was a golden opportunity to put my years of CrossFit to practical use. I approached and firmly grasped one of the house’s supporting wooden posts and immediately received three splinters in my hand that are still in there now. This softened my resolve a great deal; I could no longer bring either of my hands up to grasp the exterior of the house. I left my audience of dusty gym equipment and fridge that were watching me through the gaps of the garage and took the milk-less stairs up to the balcony, feeling a slight unease at leaving the beaten path.
The couple inside could not hear my ascending footsteps over their interfacing. Upstairs I was reunited with the trail; it finally ended at their front door, where I found the remains of what once contained a hearty helping of condensed milk, now a sharp bendy piece of detritus stabbed straight into the heart of the door. Trusting the process, I opened the pierced door of this lovely abode and stepped inside.
In the entrance I hung my backpack on the coat rack and kicked my shoes off onto the shoe rack, then moved down the hall towards the first room of the house, evidently the living room. It was a nicely decorated place, all shades and no colours, but it wasn’t really much compared to Mum and Dad’s. Every light was insomniously on, giving me a clear view of the black leather couch, white trim doorway, and both members of the pair making their stand from these spaces. I did not enjoy their vibe.
“So please, please, just do one fucking dish.”
“Oh nice, oh nice, swearing now, my favourite. I just knew you would bring swears into this.”
“Yeah? Well, I swear that I’m gonna go get impregnated by another guy if you don’t get your act together.”
With this line of debate, I noticed a certain absence in their decorations, picture frames, and entertainment vehicles. Enlightened, I shyly spoke up, emerging from the shadows of the hallway to interrupt.
“Okay, wait, so you two don’t have kids, do you?”
There was a kind of shudder through the room.
“Hello? Who the fuck are you?”
“Hello I’m Joshua. You two don’t have kids, do you?”
“No…no, we don’t.”
I smiled a sweet smile, head tilted, palms raised. “Well guys, I think I’m getting the picture here.” I walked over to the recoiling husband and gently grabbed his hand. I led him over to his wife and grabbed her hand, too. “I would ask you for your names, but I don’t think that’ll be necessary…Mum and Dad.”
They didn’t really get it, but they didn’t need to. From the moment Temporary Mum said, “what the fuck are you talking about, you’re not my son,” and Temporary Dad pushed me onto my ass, I knew I was in for a night of neglect and rejection that would make up for a whole lifetime. They slammed and locked their bedroom door in my face to avoid me, they didn’t give me any food even when I told them that I was really hungry, they didn’t let me sleep in their bed despite me being very afraid, and they even went as far as loudly announcing to me that they were calling the police, which I assumed was for the crime of not being good enough for them. After an hour of dangerously unsupervised access to the internet via their office PC, I decided to go the whole nine yards and tell them softly through their door that I was gay (I’m not) and their continued barrage of insults and hate towards their only (gay) son poured down into my heart like a heavy, necessary sand.
By morning I had endured, endured into becoming a Joshua that can finally deliver empathy and devour pity, a Joshua that knows what it feels like. Before the authorities could arrive, I left through the front door, bindle over shoulder, sunrise painting the ocean red, a tear-stained goodbye note left on the kitchen table, forever abandoned by my parents. I miss them.
This piece was featured in the 2026 summer edition of Glass Magazine
