'Dawn breaks like an open wound and spills onto my bedroom’s blank white walls and ceiling. Desperately, I cling to the sunrise as a temporal marker. I’ve been restless in the fortnight since my return to Australia, immobile in bed as my body gradually acclimates to the leap forward in time from Manila to Melbourne. But left to my own devices and bereft of the presence of work or education to structure my everyday, very little moors me to the present. The light scalds my sleepless eyes, a reminder of my abject tenselessness, as I try and fail to catch up with myself in the here and now.' (Introduction)