Cirrus@Austlit

'It's reported that some nights, as a young child, I would sit bolt-upright and say, ‘Ouch,’ then immediately jack-knife back down. Some days, I would drag a paralysed leg behind me, only slightly confused to be shunting through the sandpit in the manner of a mad scientist’s assistant. I have only brief fashes of my parents looming over my bedside, partially obscured by darkness, and no memory of the syringe in my father’s hand.' 

 (Introduction)

'My boyfriend is reading a review copy of the new book of essays by Zadie Smith, his first foray into a writer who, for most of my teens and twenties, has occupied a position in my life proximate to God. Quoting aloud from the book in bed, one of the few items of furniture in our new home, we and the spiders were rapt with one particular line.'

 (Introduction)

'In crumpled boxes on back shelves in op shops there are wooden queens (hand-painted), and marble queens with blue felt glued to their bases. Also glass queens who would clink as they touched pieces they were taking, and magnetic queens who would snap to their squares and never scatter. In chess, queen is a verb. To queen a pawn is to promote it into a more powerful piece. Chess operates like gender: it is an open system of signs where prescribed categories and conventions collapse and split into infinite permutations. To play is to create configurations. Chess and gender are languages. To queen is to disrupt both.'  (Publication abstract)

'You are trying to illegally stream a movie. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales. The irony of watching it via online piracy is not lost on you. Pop-up ads begin to appear...' (Publication abstract)

'From zero you accelerate to cruising speed, motion suggesting itself, up to the legal limit.'  (Publication abstract)

'I'm sorry. I thought you would like the wig. I thought you would like the wig because I liked the wig. I thought you would like the wig and the sweat and the flesh because I liked the wig and the sweat and the flesh. I thought you would like it because it makes me feel strong and when I'm strong I can see you entirely. When I wear the wig I can eat you whole...' 

 (Publication abstract)

'My mother learnt everythIng she knew about white people from daytime TV. 
'She would watch, transfixed, flipping channels like a roving anthropologist. My mother's social circle was stolidly South Asian, in defiance of the political right and their notion of assimilation. The TV was a portal into a different kind of life, a blindingly white world with its own specific conventions.'  (Publication abstract)

Author's note: —After ‘Parturition’ by Mina Loy

'After the exhibit went down, people asked me how did it feel to be an artist and they always said the word in English. Buwa couldn't say it without laughing. Manna told him what I was saying to my friends at the university: it was a real honour to show people how the civil war hurt us, it was an emotional experience, et cetera...' (Publication abstract)

'There's a room in Collingwood where you can smash whatever you want. 
'It's called the Break Room. 'Break' meaning to smash, fracture, bust and destroy, but also to take a break-to relax. Have a breather. Chill out.'   (Publication abstract)

'Am I nervous? Have I been pacing through Dadda's apartment for six hours, smoking through my emergency stash and making minor adjustments to the aircon while Anastasia is passed out/maybe dead on the couch and Dadda is on his way from the airport?...' (Publication abstract)

'We sit at Tony's kitchen table and watch a video on his phone. I see the warm light of a heat lamp and four brown eggs nestled in pea-straw. Three are cold, unmoving: they will not hatch. But the shell of the fourth egg has broken away, peeled back to reveal a crumpled, bloody fetal form, all sinew and joints. And then it moves.' (Publication abstract)

'Amma finds any opportunity to bring up the time she packed my kinder lunchbox full of 'puris' and potatoes. The potatoes are cut into small chunks and cooked with onions, curry leaves and sprinkles of cumin seeds. It's the turmeric that dyes the potatoes a fluorescent yellow. Apparently some kids teased me, probably thinking that my lunch looked like alien food compared to their ham sandwiches.'  (Publication abstract)

'And dad's first to go, while outside the countryside rushes by in bounds. A few ash trees run past like children, others slow giants in the distance. Each one planted far away from one another. I watch them wave in the cool air while we all sit inside, cocooned in warmth, stubby fingers under thighs. I write my name in the steamed glass, and in the reflection Dad turns-as if about to speak-but instead he says nothing, only slumping onto Mum's shoulder...' (Publication abstract)

'This production of the dark comedy Little Murders opened with a sunset. There was no-one on stage, just an empty apartment in sixties New York. The onstage telephone rang, shrill and tinny. The muffled sound of traffic came in through the back windows, as did a stream of light that splashed onto the prompt-side wall, filtered through gels in shades of rich amber to mimic the late afternoon sun. The light drifted across the wall and faded, suggesting a real sun outside melting away behind the horizon. The apartment grew dim.' (Publication abstract)