Cirrus@Austlit

'After New Year's we'd all head up to Shoal Bay: me, my mum, my dad and Richie, clamped together in this dingy blue Pulsar, screaming down the highway at ninety an hour. And the bush would be flying past us and the trucks and the road signs, and the car would be spluttering out diesel. Me and Richie would be in the back, our pockets stuffed with Gameboy batteries, shooting at pixels on tiny grey screens. And Mum would be in the front, one hand draped across her eyes, lip twitching from time to time as smoke from my dad's cigarette drifted past, and Dad ... well ... Dad would be sitting back in his chair, one arm resting on an open window, the cigarette dangling loosely between his lips....'  (Publication abstract)