11.11 pm The hometown at nighttime smells like resin and water and the flicking off of light switches, of crickets and motorway noise, of cold that slips about your neck like a wet towel. Winged things scatter in the grass; houses leak onto the street: jigsaw pieces of porches and timber weatherboards painted white. Lamplight, goodnight stories, a clatter of voices like the scraping of a plate. The trees stand solitary. Clouds wring the odd star out of the dark. We’re walking on nothing. We’re the road, unlined. — Pippi Jean, Takapuna Grammar School
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