Set in times ranging from the mediaeval to present day and in places as far apart as Australia, Europe and North America, these eighteen short stories reveal life in its bewildering, sometimes funny, and at times achingly sad moments. All is witnessed through the eyes of diverse, often flawed characters: a professional cyclist who must choose between his wife and his career, a cellist performing in the streets of a war-torn city as mortars explode around him, a boy hiding behind fantasy to compensate for an absent father, a yachtsman fighting both his conscience and a storm on Port Phillip...