Australian novelist
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Let's not beat around the bush: human feelings can be ridiculous. Thinking back to that moment, to how I felt at the realization that my stepfather was slowly murdering me, I did not feel anger. I did not feel outrage. I felt hurt. That's right. That this man who I'd lived with my whole life, the man who married my mother and was for all practical purposes my father, was maliciously poisoning me to death hurt my feelings. Ridiculous!
Watching them watching us, I wondered if they had the slightest clue what to expect in Australia. I supposed they knew they'd be living an underground existence, exploited in brothels, factories, building sites, restaurant kitchens, and by the fashion industry, who would get them sewing their fingers to the bone. But I doubted they were aware of the adolescent competition among political leaders to see who had the toughest immigration policies, the kind you wouldn't want to meet down a dark alley. Or that public opinion ws already set against them, because even if you're running for your life you still have to wait in line, or that Australia, like everywhere, excelled in making arbitrary distinctions between people seem important.
This is exactly the kind of thing a single man can do at five-thirty in the morning, I thought - this is exactly why people have wives and husbands and girlfriends and boyfriends, so they don't allow themselves to get too creepy. But leave a man alone for long enough and there is nothing odd he won't do. A life lived alone weakens the mind's immune system, and your brain becomes susceptible to an attack of strange ideas.
Are you all following me? We puzzlingly overestimate our elected representatives. Don't overestimate me! I'll make blunder after stupid blunder! But it is necessary for you to know where I stand on certain contentious issues so you'll know what kind of blunders I'll be making. Well, I am certainly not on the right. I don't care if gays get married or get divorced. Not that I'm not for gay rights specifically. I'm just against the phrase 'family values.' In fact, when someone says the phrase 'family values,' I feel like I've been slapped in the face with a condom from 1953. Well, then, am I on the left? Sure, they're the first to sign petitions and in international affairs will always support the perceived underdog, even if the underdog is a bunch of cannibals - as long as they have less money and fewer resources - and these deeply caring individuals on the left will do anything for the betterment of the disenfranchised except make a personal sacrifice. So you see? I'm neither left nor right. But I'm just an ordinary person who goes to sleep feeling guilty every night.