Boy Swallows Universe

by Trent Dalton

True love like this dies if it has to wait for fate. True love like this asks lovers to cast aside what is meant to be and work with what is.

Lena could only be sure he did not mean their love because she knew there was hardship in this true love and endurance and reward and failure and renewal and, finally, death, but never regret.

Truth is, Bich said, Australian childhoods are so idyllic and joyous, so filled with beach visits and backyard games of cricket, that Australian adulthoods can’t possibly meet our childhood expectations. Our perfect early lives in this vast island paradise doom us to melancholy because we know, in the hard honest bones beneath our dubious bronze skin, that we will never again be happier than we were once before.

‘Sacrifice,’ he said. ‘Never grow attached to anything you can’t instantly separate yourself from.’