Cirrus@Austlit

'It seems an odd thing to say in Voiceworks, but I think we put too much focus on age. By “we” I don’t mean this magazine, though we are pretty strict in our whole under-25 thing. As a society we put a lot of weight into expected milestones; we graduate school. We spend a few years in university. We get married (if permitted). We have children. All of these things supposedly need to happen by a certain age. Ticktock. If we don’t check these things off our lists in a timely fashion, we can feel like failures. But we shouldn’t.'

 (Introduction)

'I joined Voiceworks’ EdComm in 2009, when I was seventeen and still required to wear a high-school uniform. To save myself from embarrassment, I would bring a change of clothes to school on Tuesdays and do a Superman in the toilets before heading to meetings with the ultra-cool, mature, talented and funny under-25 but definitely over-18 people who made up the rest of the committee. I had no idea what I was doing there. In the first meeting, I learned that I was a part of the largest group of new committee members Voiceworks had ever accepted in one round. Okay, that made a little more sense — they were feeling extra generous and, amid all those applications, mine had landed in the right pile.'

 (Introduction)

'For a few years I lived in a tiny beachside town six hours from Melbourne. It was the kind of place with postcard-perfect shorelines, mud-brick houses and a prep-to-year twelve college. So, even in a combined classroom, there were only ten other kids in my class, the majority of whom weren’t mad keen on books. These being the dark days of dial-up, whatchya saw was pretty much whatchya got in terms of a peer group – and even worse, selection at the school library.' 

 (Introduction)

'She was trying to crawl under the white-paint road lines. Her right cheek was ripped, bleeding from the effort. And her elbows were at wrong angles. A blue Nissan swerved as I dragged her away.' (Publication abstract)

 

'I am ten years old, standing by the fridge in our kitchen. Underneath chunky souvenir magnets are unpaid bills and excursion forms that need signing. Most of these papers have light red crinkles down them, lines like dried out creek beds. I stretch to pull the cardboard wine box towards the edge of the fridge. The black plastic tap is hard to press, sometimes it catches my thumbnail and makes it go all rosy underneath. Because it takes so much effort, I usually overfill Dad's glass so I don't have to make a return trip. He never minds, but Mum rolls her eyes when Dad's not looking...'

 (Publication abstract)

'It's around mid-day and I'm just coming off one of the ground-pass courts with my 16-year-old sister and fellow official. As soon as we've left behind the intensity of the match, our stiff professionalism wilts. We weave steadily through the teeming crowds until we reach Rod Laver Arena's basement corridors. We surreptitiously peer into the Player Gym as we pass. David Ferrer is pounding the treadmill, head down. In the corridor up ahead is a towering blonde player, stalking to the practice courts with her coach. "Is that Maria Sharapova?" Kayla whispers. We sheepishly attempt to evade the TV cameras that swing around to cover each of her languorous steps.' 

 (Publication abstract)

' "Discipline," said Mr Crumb in his address to the staffroom on the first morning of term, "is a master's most valuable asset"...'

 (Publication abstract)

'It's 3:30 on a Friday and Rocky Loo has pulled into his driveway to find a neatly dressed white man sitting in his deck chair. Loo's just finished work as a brickie's labourer and like anyone who breaks their back for a wage, all he wants to do is sit down for a while and just do nothing.' (Publication abstract)

 

'My lawyer had told me to imagine I am someplace else. 
'"You have a good imagination, Oliver," he'd said. "Can you do that for me?" '
I imagine the court walls becoming clear and the outer benches stretching up into curved windows. I picture lines of brand new cars inside. They are the metallic colours of bright planets: red, blue, silver. Some collect more people in their orbits than others, glinting inside rings of prospective buyers. I like to sit with the cars that get ignored. '
I whisper, "I'd take you away if I could. I want to help." '

 (Publication abstract)

'Newsagencies and souvenir shops hail goodbye on either side of the hall, packed with last-minute neck pillows and luggage padlocks and peanuts and boomerangs as final farewells. The plane is boarding now. The seats are over the wing. Stable and central, it's the best place to avoid being sick. My mother sits between me and my father. We quietly share comments about the bastards seated in front of us: 45-year-old men who leer at the flight attendants together while on their way to a destination famed for hospitality and courtesy, but also infamous for sex tourism and police corruption. The one in front of me leans back as far as possible in his seat and falls asleep watching a frat comedy.' (Publication abstract)

'I'm staring at the pupil of my webcam and it's staring back at me. There's some kind of a meat paste slouching on one of my mother's dinner plates. They don't actually like to call it meat paste so they call it pate. 
'Your face suddenly appears on my ultrathin laptop screen. Your face: it's fresh and new and smiling at me. You were so romantic, so respectful to ask me on a webcam date first. I was only sixteen; you were a dream that wore cool kicks and had the latest iOS and listened to Vibe Bop while drinking milk tea out of paper boxes. "Hi," you said...'  (Publication abstract)

'From our hillside perch we gaze across the treetops. The sky is watercolour pink, fading fast to a pollution grey. The gully sprawls out readily in front of us. In the distance is an unrelenting gush of highway noise as orange headlights glimmer through the trees. We wait.' (Publication abstract)

'It’s Lucy’s turn for show-and-tell. She’s brought a can of baked beans to share with the class. “My Uncle Bernie has seventy-three cans of baked beans in his wardrobe. He’s saving them for when the world gets poisoned and we’ve got nothing left to eat, because all the cows and pigs and lambs are dead and even the vegetarians can’t survive because all the lettuces have died too.”'

 (Publication abstract)