AustLit

'I used to go down to the local pool, biding time between hospital stints. I waded in the shallow end through the heat of summer as my sister did laps in the next lane. I could often only walk a few steps before stopping. My lungs felt strained and my heart had developed random piercing pains. A lifeguard watched closely from nearby. I remember looking at myself in the change room afterwards and being frightened. I had initially caught sight of myself in my peripheral vision and I—unexpectedly—suddenly appeared clearly. I normally saw myself as I had always looked and struggled to perceive the changes wrought by a thirty-kilo weight loss. But when I saw myself, this time, from the corner of my eye, it struck me that I looked like a starved bird. All bones and veins, palpitating. I  was a diaphanous skeleton with human gestures, but without a face. An assortment of features had gathered on my skull, but failed to impersonate anything recognisably human. I avoided eye contact because when I found it I saw nothing but a reflection of the spectre I had become.' (Introduction)