Tim Winton

It seemed that these were Joneses who didn't need much keeping up with.

She was sick of conversations with people passing through. Nothing you said to each other mattered a damn because you'd never see them again.

Inside his mother is silent at the stove. Her face is shut down. It's nothing new. The table's set. He washes his hands and, newly protected by his thoughts, settles himself into the silence she's prepared for him. He already knows what his mother thinks. To her, the world is a treacherous place. Nothing lasts. People cheat. They leave. They just up and go. Sooner or later they all bolt and you're left on your own, and the look of reproach she gives him now is but a variation on her whole demeanour, the assumption in every glance, every sigh, every mute chink of cutlery, is that he too will leave her high and dry, just as the old man did three years ago. He's fifteen and it's old news. He feels sorry for her, protective still, but he's had a gutful. He wants her to get over it but he senses that it's beyond her.

It's a survival thing, making yourself a small target.

Though it seemed so beautiful, the world around us was eternally dangerous. The price of spiritual freedom, we learnt, was eternal vigilance. Such a high price for so long.

"All the big things hurt, the things you remember. If it doesn't hurt it's not important."

The past is in us, and not behind us. Things are never over.

And you know someone's special when you never get enough of them.

Honestly, sometimes you'd rather be a dog. A mutt doesn't torture itself with thinking.

I knew what people thought. Clacktons, we were rubbish. Town like Monkton, one pub, roadhouse, rail silo and twelve streets, half of them empty, small enough everyone heard something and they all had a fucking opinion.

Nanna was the first dead person I ever saw. Her hair was blue against the pillow. And when me hand bumped her cheek she was cold and heavy and a kind of spark went through me, like a terrible familiar feeling. And I understood it then. She was meat. That's what dead things are.

I shoulda been making proper plans to go right then. But I wasn't. You ever seen a chased rabbit give in running? When he just pulls up and stands there? Like he's out of puff and out of ideas and can't put two moves together anymore? Well that was me. I shoulda been gone already. It was like I was paralysed.