- Come and see our giant kiwifruit. Come and see our giant carrot. Even come and see our giant Lemon and Paeroa bottle. But donât think, even for a second, about what left them behind.
- You get stuck in traffic. Your dad blames it on foreign drivers. You donât bother correcting him. You donât bother telling him that all of these vehicles are unoccupied.
- They say the Moa went extinct. But then, whatâs the explanation for the enormous avian figure looming over your bed each night? You donât know. You just close your eyes and hope it will be gone by morning.
-Â âIâm just going down to the dairy, you wanna come?â, your friend asks. You refuse. Too often have people uttered that line and never come back. Thereâs too many dairies. All of them interconnected, woven with each other. They say that you stay lost forever, but you might as well get a phone top-up while youâre there.
- They say that in this country, you are never more than 40 Kilometers from the beach. Everywhere you go, the beach follows. Distant, but close enough to be unnerving. The sand and surf rush to catch up to you as you speed up.
-There is a town in Auckland that used to be overrun by chickens. The local school incorporated them into their school logo. The local school regularly worshiped the chickens. One day, the chickens vanished. The school still worships, waiting.Â
- We are proud of our sports. We are proud of the All Blacks. Proud of the all encompassing void that is our national rugby team.Â
- The weatherman consults the weather map. He does not find a satisfactory answer. The weatherman consults ancient deities. He does not find a satisfactory answer. The weatherman writes â30% chance of rainâ and prays it will be enough.
- As a child, I always watched âWhat Now?â. They never gave me an answer. I still donât know what to do now.
- That ad you like comes on. You watch it. You laugh. The nation laughs. But most of all, the government laughs.
- They tell me Lake Taupo was caused by an enormous volcano thousands of years ago. I point questioningly to the enormous figure off the coastline, making other enormous craters with its mighty fists. They pretend they donât see.Â
- The glowworms in Waitomo are trying to communicate. We just donât know who the intended recipient is.
- Tourists come, looking for Middle Earth. We laugh. We point them to the movie sets. We protect the last of the hobbits.
- We hear our country mentioned in international media. We are excited. Maybe someone will come and free us this time.
- You stare at the Moeraki boulders. You have done this every day since that time you swear you saw one of them move. You spend hours, waiting, watching. Just as you turn to leave, you notice that one is cracked. It was not cracked yesterday. You continue to leave, faster now.
- You drive through the countryside. All the small towns you pass have their own little quirk. This one has a bathroom made mostly of recycled glass bottles. This one has an enormous farmers market. This one has itâs inhabitants cowering inside their homes. They are hiding from you. You drive through the countryside.
