The Glass Kingdom (24 page)

The cold of the water sucks the air out of you. You hold what little breath you have left until you see pinpricks of light, a galaxy swirling within your eyelids. You drift down, deeper, away from the surface until you are among the stars. You call the playmate's name.

Wait for me, Michele. Wait.

Somewhere an asteroid strikes the planet and, in an instant, you are vaporised and your atoms are rocketed high into the mesosphere. The man you were is now nothing more than a Triceratops, or maybe an Iguanodon. Either way, it's sayonara, big guy. You are megafauna, cast in the air by the impact, dashed into countless microscopic pieces.

The air is thin up there. It is hard to breathe. Everything looks so tiny. The night has passed. The horizon is ablaze with colour and light. The clouds part as the chopper begins its descent to the base and, finally, you turn and feel the sun's warmth on your face.

Props to my editor David Winter for the fully sick remixes, publicists Jane Novak and Stephanie Speight for the media big-ups, and Chong for his beast cover skillz. Shout out to the posse at Arts Victoria for the chedda.

To the crew who put up with me and inspired me while I worked on this: David Astle, Jordan Bass, Nihal Bhagwandas, James Bradley, Sophie Cunningham, Jenny Niven, Diego Patiño, Nick Earls, James Franco, Robert Skinner, Afsaneh Knight, Andy Murdoch, Kent MacCarter, Mischa Merz, John Hunter, Jess Ho, George and Bonita at Zoologie, Brad Dunn, Yu-Ann Chen, Jason Crombie, Ianthe Brautigan, Tony Birch, Nadia Saccardo, Robert F. Coleman, Mel Cranenburgh, Bethanie Blanchard, Angela Meyer, Lisa Dempster, Jemma Birrell, Martin Shaw, Michael Williams, Simon Abrahams, Michael Cathcart, Sarah L'Estrange, Estelle Tang, and Zora Sanders: Peace.

To the Destiny's Child of literature: Josephine Rowe, Claire Bidwell Smith, and Toni Jordan, whose books
Tarcutta
Wake
,
The Rules of Inheritance
, and
Nine Days
taught me how to be a better writer: Holla!

To my family: Ernie and Liz, Julie and Sammy, Aunt Margaret and cousin Alison, Alun and Jenny, Barney and Alayna, and Tom: Can you kick it? Yes, you can.

To Eirian, whose propensity to sing filthy gangster-rap lyrics while she works would make Mikey proud.

Kendrick Lamar
good kid, m.A.A.d city

Frank Ocean
Channel ORANGE

Azealia Banks
1991
Broke with Expensive Taste

A$AP Rocky
LONG.LIVE.A$AP

N.A.S.A.
The Spirit of Apollo

RL Grime
High Beams

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