Cirrus@Austlit

'It's nighttime when it starts raining down the walls. My posters all get ruined, my photo from school camp. Ringlets of smoke curl in my window from outside. There is banging on the ceiling. The insides of strangers' lives are so close we can touch. Mould creeps across like a rash.'  (Introduction)

'Lie back. Yes, I know most women prefer to bear down on their knees, or stand on the bricks, or at the chair. But trust me, it's best if you stay on your back. Otherwise, there won't be any room for your son to slide out. He's going to be big. They always are.'  (Introduction)

'There was a man who licked revenge between his teeth and called to me when the moon dangled high. He did all the right things, dousing himself in the blood- scent of trees and kicking a wind into the dirt so that I would see his message. I struck his sticks and brought forth a writhing, black body of smoke and said what will you wish under the watchful moon?'  (Introduction)

'At the age of four, my mother told me that all people judge a person, first by their appearance-the outer and most vulnerable part of oneself-followed by their family, their achievements, and only then by their demeanour. She made it a priority to perfect my habits, body and etiquette before I turned eight, but had severely underestimated her ability to remould my external design, like the remorphing of misshapen clay on a potter's wheel.' (Introduction)