"Phoebe" - insta-yarn

Her hipster friends in Bondi thought it took the all-time ironic prize: for a living, Phoebe sold military insignia on-line to lonely guys. She'd learned the biz from her uncle, who survived Long Tan, when he still operated from a shop that never rolled up its security grates in one of those odd 70s shopping arcades in Parramatta. Sometimes, he'd take her down to the wharves at Botany, where fellows would borrow cigarettes from him, to see the crates come from the suppliers in Taiwan. She recalled his opening them up with a small crow bar from the boot of his beaten-up Torana. Then, digging through the first layer of pink packing Styrofoam. And, finding faux WW2 medals of Vichy France, or imitation American Civil War belt buckles. As he'd start his inventory or what not with his clipboard and Biro, Phoebe would trace her fingers along the Chinese characters burnt with a blowtorch onto the splintering sides of the crates.