I´d read fantasy if they had simple names like Jane and Bob from Wagga," I say. "Why does it have to be Tehrana and Bihaad from the World of Sceehina?" Jimmy looks at my mother and rolls his eyes. "No wonder they call her bimbo behind her back." And my mum laughs. And because of that, Mark Viduka, the soccer player, stops being my brothers hero, and Luca and Pinocchio run after Jimmy like he´s their idol.

Because without our language, we have lost ourselves. Who are we without our words?

You blame me for this, don't you?" he says. "I don't need to. You're doing a better job.

One day" came. Because finally I understood.

I stand up, sure of one thing and one thing only. That my father will come and get me. He won't give me a lecture, he won't try to teach me a lesson. He won't ask a thousand questions or ask me to apologize. He'll just come and get me. "Just tell me where you are.

Sometimes I feel like a junkie. One minute something happens in my life and I'm flying. Next minute I take a nose-dive and just as I'm about to hit the ground with full force something else will have me flying again.

The depression belongs to all of us. I think of the family down the road whose mother was having a baby and they went around the neighborhood saying, "We're pregnant." I want to go around the neighborhood saying, "We're depressed." If my mum can't get out of bed in the morning, all of us feel the same. Her silence has become ours, and it's eating us alive.