Thinking about it by Paula Campos

As part of EWF X Hate Mail (2026)

She won’t tell them. She won’t say goodbye. The day it happens, she won’t know it’s
the day. She’ll tell herself to do it slowly, gently, to come back for her desk, her vision
board, the tais dress they made for her when she finished high school. But as she
loads the last of her clothes into the car, she’ll see her mum standing at the window,
hear her dad yelling for something. A towel, his socks, the remote. For a still second,
she’ll wonder—did ma think about it? Then she’ll feel the throbbing in her cheeks.
Feel how tired she is, in her shoulders, her eyes, everywhere. It’ll have been a month
or so since the last time they spoke. She’ll close the boot. She’ll start the car. She’ll
forget her house keys on the dining table.

But right now, she’s mixing sugar and flour and butter and eggs on the dining table,
and she thinks about how she’ll tell them. At dinner maybe, when they’re all eating
sasate. Or just before dessert. And a month in advance, so they don’t stop her or
stop talking to her. She sprinkles cinnamon into the batter.

She thinks about them, but a week ago, when she said “no,” he threw the remote. It
hit the wall this time, but it reminded her of how small she felt as a child. She went to
her room, sat on the floor. Bit her cheek. Licked the blood. And that’s when she
started thinking about it, again.

She really started thinking about it on her second solo trip, a year ago. During the
first, when she went up to the Central Coast, she was scared. She didn’t recognise
the faces in the train, the bus, the motel. They didn’t believe she could do it
either—her mum kept calling to check in, kept telling her to taka the blinds in her
room, double check the locks. She made mistakes that she wouldn’t have made at
home—forgetting her wallet on the bus, slicing her finger with a bread knife. When
she got back, her dad cackled and poked at the gauze. Stupida, he said.

She did the second trip after she bought her own car. It was a two-week meditation
retreat in Wollongong. She drove down without telling them. Kept her phone off. Met
new people. And they shouldn’t have, they weren’t supposed to, but they snuck out
to the beach every second night. In the raw midnight water, she allowed herself to
breathe with her nose, her eyes, her ears, to feel her skin expand with the waves, to
see herself in strangers. When she got home, she started looking back and smiling
and touching the photos she’d taken. She pinned the photos to her vision board. She
thought about it for the first time.

But it’s been a year since that solo trip and now she’s preheating the oven. She
hums, turning the dial to 180 degrees, and she thinks about it. She thinks about
baking for them in her new place, about preparing the spare bed, asking them to
stay. She wonders if her space will be big enough. If she can afford a space that is
big enough. The water, gas, electricity, rent. The sugar, flour, butter, eggs. She
returns to the dining table, grabs a clump of dough. She rolls it into a hard, little ball.

She never thought about it as a child. She might’ve felt small, sometimes, but she
didn’t like to think about it. Didn’t have the capacity to think about it. She was always
just rolling around with the ants, a hard, little ball on the front lawn. Waiting for her
dad to come home from work and pick her up and squeeze her into a hug. For her
mum to make the house smell like cinnamon sugar.

The day it happens, it’ll be because of the last time they spoke. It’ll be because the
remote finally hits her head and, when she wakes up again, she’s rolling into an
ambulance. She’ll tell the doctors she fell backwards, onto the dining table. Her mum
will confirm it, tell them she was there, she saw it too.

They won’t come over, or call, for the first few years. And yet important letters
addressed to her old home will appear in her mailbox. Bank statements. A new
health care card. A reminder to lodge her tax return. Ripping into those letters, she’ll
think about her mum reaching for her hand in the ER, saying something about how it
was harder for her dad, he was a skinny little boy in Timor. She’ll remember how her
mouth opened and closed, how she couldn’t find the words in tetum anymore. But
she’ll hold onto it, the letters, the cinnamon, her mum’s dry hands—she’ll wait for
them.

But in those years, she’ll also live with her best friend. She’ll work enough to pay the
rent, and keep the car, and save for the next road trip, and bake every winter weekend. 
She’ll drop her phone, really crack the screen this time. She’ll get a new one, forget 
to re-save their numbers. Forget that she was waiting for them. Forget.

But right now, there’s something deep inside her, inadequate and impenetrable. And
she thinks she can’t do it. She forms the last little ball, then drops onto the dining
chair.

She’s lived with herself her whole life. So she can do it. She will do it. It just won’t be
all easy. She’ll go months without a job, go weeks waiting for Centrelink to process
her claim. She’ll consider selling her car. She’ll learn to hop on a light rail without
tapping. To slide out when the guards come on. To slide apples up her sleeve at the
supermarket.

But in all that, she’ll remember what’s really worse. She’ll remember the dent of the
remote in her head, her body dropping onto the carpet. She’ll remember crying and
sinking into the couch, and her mum telling her that’s not what couches are for. She’ll
remember trying to sleep, to stay asleep, chewing and licking and swallowing the
blood in her cheek.

Just right now, she can’t. Tony Pereira is in the living room, signing O Rai Timor on
her mum’s phone. Her mum is sighing, humming, waiting for her. So she slides the
tray into the oven. Then she stands there, counting the seconds, then the minutes.
She watches the balls soften and flatten, their edges reaching and hardening all over
again. She watches. She waits. She shouldn’t, but it’s too tempting. She opens the
oven, just a little, and she lets the cinnamon sugar soften the air, the house. Her
mum asks if they’re ready. Her dad too, from his room. And Tony mumbles. Tasi o
nian, hau la haluha. Hau hadomi o. She turns the oven off. She stays.