Lorikeets Perched On The Telephone Line, french fries dipped into sweet chili sauce, Christmas trees decorating a subtropical summer-Australia can seem so strange to a foreigner that even the sky turning the color of egg yolks doesn't feel out of place. I was studying abroad in Brisbane in the austral spring of 2009, and I didn't notice the oddly tinted sky until I stepped outside after class, in search of a quiet picnic table for a video chat with my family back home. The sky was soupy, like a foggy morning in San Francisco, only yellow instead of gray. I couldn't smell the dust, couldn't see it, but it accumulated inexorably on my hands, clothes, and computer, obscuring the keyboard's letters by the time I was done with my call.
展开▼
