Then he turned on the clock and heard the first thing anyone or anything said to him in his thirties. 'Good morning. You have 394,200 hours left to live.' From 'The Death Clock', Poppies

He closed his eyes and remembered the bottle of bourbon disappear out the driver's window as he gunned the car at over 160kph, saw it explode in a million shards and droplets in the rear vision mirror, and the black crows skipping towards it, towards the site of the explosion, before it all disappeared behind him in a silver haze of heat. From "The Abattoir Party', Poppies

I can't quite understand this, being only five, but the less obvious my mother tries to make my lazy eye by disguising it with the pink patch, the more it stands out. The bold black patch, though, seems to make the problem disappear. Suddenly I am the Pirate Boy. Yo-ho-ho. From 'The Eleven Movements of the Pirate Boy', Ticking

I went to what I thought was a meeting of the No Aircraft Noise Party, but it had nothing to do with the No Aircraft Noise Party. It was literally a No Aircraft Noise party. A fancy dress party. A fancy dress party with an aircraft theme. There were three huge walking triangular sandwiches, complete with crusts and a frill of lettuce. There were five sick bags, a half-dozen Emu Homestead Anzac cookies sachets, two captains, a smattering of stewards, one elaborately dressed purser, a silver coffee pot, a colourful group of orange juice containers, a few boarding passes, two bulky beverage trolleys in the corner next to the jukebox, and a gathering of miniature spirit bottles. On the dining room table someone had ingeniously rigged up an automatic Lazy Susan that looked like a tiny luggage carousel. It carried snacks around on an endless circuit. And then there was The Banana Queen. From View From the Bar Italia: An Entertainment