Short stories don't attempt to tell the whole tale. They are a snapshot of a particular episode in the life of the characters. Because short stories start and finish quite abruptly, they often stay in the mind of the reader and invite them to invent their own alternative endings. The first of these stories happens on a remote mining station, the second in a suburban a family home, the third on a dream holiday. The particular pleasure of these three short stories is the variety, within a common theme of perplexity that things could have turned out as they did.

Tailored for dyslexic...