AustLit

'Under the crimson wash of light and dark sits a boy against a peppercorn tree. He's watching the sun fade and the campervans leave out behind the green wire fence and down the dirt road he wasn't ever allowed to go down. Their curtains are shut, spare tyres rattling as the vehicles kick up tiny stones. The boy wasn't to speak or listen to the outsiders. He'd stare through his cloudy scratched window at the kids playing spotlight at night, torches beaming from the long grass - or, as his mum called it, Addict's Crop. Their squeals rang out across the park while he lay in bed. Sometimes he could hear them sneaking and whispering late at night. He'd listen and smile at the secrecy and would be up hours imagining what they were doing. Tonight, only the gas stove clicked before his mum lit another cigarette and drank from the green bottle he wasn't allowed to touch...' (Publication abstract)