Leading up to the release of Inkspot 2025 Issue 1: Archive, we are looking back at our own archives and hand-picking pieces from the past to breathe new life in them — pieces that moved us then and move us now — pieces that speak with a timeless voice — exemplary texts from Melbourne University's diverse cadre of creative writers. CLAWS will feature an article a week over the next couple of months to magnify members from the past and to continue inspiring us to write playfully and meaningfully. Our first feature article can be found in Inkspot's inaugural edition: Things That Don't Exist.
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John Ricca
7am: get up and immediately send photos of my body to three estranged suitors whom I rejected during my stay at the Ritz. I ash my second mid-morning cigarette on a page of Dante's third Canto taking a single bite of yesterday's brioche. I spray Avène’s eau thermale on a lower quadrant of my tongue (hydration is key) washing the meal down.
The next twenty minutes are spent spinning the barrel of the single gold revolver I keep on my person at all times. It's loaded with three bullets, one for the birth of Venus - hung at the Uffizi, another for my lover and the third because he told me I was a bad shot.
I'm outside now wearing Coco's little black jacket in an original '45 tweed when I realise the Cartier's scratched my planner. The planner's from the year 1935 so it's fucking useless but nevertheless the day is ruined. I sleep for 17 consecutive hours.
Severely dehydrated, I spray Chanel’s Eau Première from the 50ml bottle and long for the river Seine. I'm staring at Rankin's the Liebela Blue, indulging in a third mid latenoon cigarette. I cough up a lump from my throat, weigh myself and use the globule for rouge. The glass of the 1914 Bollinger is spilt on the floor and I am immediately distressed. I sit on the toilet now for 45 minutes to cry. I then flush, wash my hands and remind myself that Jacques Guerlain wept only when he smelled Italian bergamot orange.
I now collapse on the floor from severe malnutrition and immediately die. I'm wearing Jicky and the stiletto Louboutins from the '94 spring collection. My ghostly spectre rises from my corpse and lights her first early-evening cigarette before haunting the cat. She's wearing the '84 Escada jacket in Brunswick blue and Luten's La Fille de Berlin (the cat, that is). I'm actually balls bare with my sick ghost lazer-gun ready to fuck up that crone from woollies who wouldn’t sell me darts.
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