“I knew all this, I understood the rules, but still, nothing broke my heart like the slow death of a shared joke that had once seemed genuinely funny.”

“... nothing broke my heart like the slow death of a shared joke that had once seemed genuinely funny.”

“Now I wish she'd never broken any of her rules. I understood why she held to them so hard. Once you broke the first one, they all broke, one by one, like firecrackers exploding in your face in a parking lot on the Fourth of July.”

“Gently, I reach forward and close her eyes with my fingertips, hoping it will make her seem merely asleep. But the stillness of sleep is nothing at all like the stillness of death.”

“I understood all that in my head, but I still didn‟t believe it in my heart.”

“With an incredulous sigh, I found myself still shaking my head. It all seemed so improbable but I knew he was right. That was the most frustrating part of it all. I knew about the bunyip. How many times had I heard the word as a child? I even knew that they liked still water, quiet billabongs. But if I walked into the Rangers office at Central Station and told them they had a bunyip in their lake! Once more I shook my head. They wouldn’t even bother to lock me up. They would probably take the report and then just file it somewhere... like in the bin, like I was a nutter.”