Cirrus@Austlit

'Their fingernails are broken and dirty. Their hair is greasy and lank and long. We must not get too close for the lice. Their eyes are tired and bloodshot. Their clothes wear grey rags that hang from their wasted bodies in limp tatters. Some don't wear coats. Some don't wear shoes. They have putrid sores and purple scars and bruises that never fade. They moan all the time. We try not to listen. They stink of piss and smoke and damp. They do not work or play. They do not rest. They are not like us. Ellie says they never were.' (Author's abstract)

'From the back of the cab on the way from the airport in Denpasar, we hit Kuta and I saw three very sunburnt back packers dancing on the side of the road. I couldn't hear the music, but it could have been some African drum [n] bass by the way one of them saw jerking his arms. They were holding beers and buying food from a mobile warung- a motorcycle with a wooden bain-marie perched on the back - the misted over glass obscuring the shape of unidentifiable meats.' (Author's abstract)

''It just makes you stop and think,' David is saying. 'Something like that makes you reassess everything.' He swigs at his beer, thoughtfully. Kel listens to the suck and sigh of the bottle at his lips. The faces around the dinner table are transfixed. David has always been a good story-teller. His recounting of events is so much more dramatic that anything she can manage.' (Author's abstract)

'I first heard the word when I was eleven. We, that is, my Dad, Mum, older brother and younger sister, were at the local picnic spot. A football ground sized area scattered with old gnarled gums, a pebble toilet block, some barbeques with a sleepy river in the far perimeter. The relentless heat had driven everyone to their pools. We had no pool or air conditioning so were at the river playing I spy while waiting for our lunch to go down.' (Author's abstract)

'Kathy's working at Vero's café. She feels nauseous on the bus, her first bout of motion sickness. She gets off a stop early and for the rest of the week she walks. She's three days late which means one thing.' (Author's abstract)

‘The last time I saw T smoke billowed from his ears like inverse waterfalls and there were caterpillars crawling all on his head like a hat, he looked like the Davey Crocket Horror Picture Show. I was tripping out of my mind, but could still tell it was all very dramatic.’ (Author’s introduction)

‘Dad watches my tears plop on the pages of Plutarch and says, ‘It’s not natural for a boy your age. You should hold that stuff in.’ He runs his hand through his thinning hair.’ (Author’s introduction)

‘A skinny wind blew upside of the flats and the clouds mobbed the sun out of the sky and it was cold. I said we should climb into the pump house for shelter, but Teresa said that only junkies went there, though she and me had had a cubby house there last summer. A pissy slash of sunlight splashed against the back of the flats. Halley stood by the pillars there beside Teresa. I went over too.’ (Author’s introduction)