AustLit

'There's drool collecting in a pool on my pillow. I have headphones in my ears, my laptop open on the bed. From my prone position, a girl’s face appears rotated ninety degrees clockwise. ‘Ymlacio,’ she whispers down the left headphone and into my left ear. This means ‘relax’ in Welsh. Then she whispers, ‘Cysgu’— ‘sleep’ into my right. LauraLemurex ASMR will go on to brush the binaural microphone, cap and uncap a series of lidded items, tap her video game collection, and go to town on a squishy sphere whose function is ambiguous. I hunt for increasingly obscure videos that will cater to my increasingly niche interests: finger fluttering, ear cupping, fabric scratching, page flipping, unintelligible whispering. I do it in secret. I am an ear pervert.' 

 (Introduction)

'We live in uncertain times. Will ours be the last generation of humans to roam the earth, eventually being crushed under the derelict investment properties of our elected leaders? Who’s to say. As a young person in 2017, I have found it helpful to identify the things that I know will immediately make me feel better. For some people, this security blanket can be visiting a favourite place, or talking to friends in order to release the metaphorical pressure valve. As a chronic nerd, I’ve always found refuge from the outside world in a book to be a very efficient coping mechanism. More specifically, historical fiction has always felt like the safest place to be when I’m feeling anxious, afraid or just plain glum.' (Introduction)

'It was summer when I began to love Cecily. Leaves curled. Shoulders were brindled and browned. Asphalt melted and stuck to the soles of old sandals. Heat came up from the pores in the pavement and down from the bluewhite sky. Everything smelled. The wind was burnt and bodies were saltysour with sweat. Trams moved slowly. The air was denser, gelatinous, you had to push through the thick of it. When it was dry, the heat sucked you up from the inside, drinking the wetness of you, so you were left crisp and fragile like cicada skin. When it was wet, the heat was drowning...' (Publication abstract)

'We found the hole on an unremarkable day during that crazy hot summer that paralysed everyone in our neighbourhood. The pavement was so prickly with heat you could have cooked fajitas on it. I told Dad this and he said it would be unhygienic. Dad had recently finished watching a documentary series about Ebola and was more paranoid than usual about that kind of thing...'  (Publication abstract)

'It's near silent in the early morning dawn-light hours. Now and again, zombie-like figures pop up in the headlights of the trawling ute. They keep walking, dumb and ghostly, and have to be startled with the flicking on-off-on-off of the high beams. Confused, they stagger away from the light, clearing the road. They're lost, looking for something to do, somewhere to sleep, someone to sleep with.'  (Publication abstract)

'I wanted to tell them that our funding was being cut and that in six months we would all have nothing. But I didn't. I couldn't.'  (Introduction)

'In a video titled '5 reasons you shouldn't go vegan' (563,522 views), Bonnyrebecca says to her subscribers, 'Have you ever heard the expression "Pay for it now, or pay for it later"? You can pay for it now in produce and fresh fruits and vegetables, or you can pay for it in the form of bills or medicine and hospital beds ... it's your choice!' As she speaks, the phrase 'Make your food a priority' pops up on the screen, hovering around her mouth as she talks about her friends who thrive on a vegan lifestyle while living on a student budget.'  (Publication abstract)

'I wake up. I wake up every morning and sleep for the whole day but not really sleeping. I've got no Rapid Eye Movement sweet dreams just-paused. Pick up the phone: Thank you for calling, how can I help you today? Thank you for calling. Thank you for calling, how can I help, how can I? Thank you for calling. Seven hours and fifty-six minutes left. Tick Tick Tick Tick Thank you for calling, thank you, thank you, dollar sign, dollar sign, thank you, have a great day...' 

 (Publication abstract)

'In February 2017, a new war memorial, The Garden of the Grieving Mother, was unveiled in Ballarat, joining the thousands that dot the cities and regional towns of Australia. This memorial challenges the way mainstream Australia collectively remembers the First World War. At the centre of the memorial is a 1.8-metre bronze statue of a bereaved mother who stands, head bowed, clutching a photograph of her son. This woman represents tens of thousands in her anonymity, a tribute to all mothers who suffered the anxiety, trauma and grief of losing a child to war.'  (Publication abstract)

'I get through three kilometres before there are people lining up at the door to the pool. I towel off, change, eat a banana. Open up. The first ones through are the squad coaches; arriving ten minutes before practice starts so that they can write the sets up on the whiteboard, and drink the coffee out of their travel mugs. Then there are the early morning crew, mostly older men and some women who've been swimming here for decades. They are weathered, salty and friendly. We don't speak much before they've been in but after their swims they come back for a coffee and a chat, to brag about their team beating mine in the league...'  (Publication abstract)