Description: The poet ceases. Something has changed. He has reached his goal but somehow remains undone. His soul has received as nourishment the odes he writes, yet he cannot rest. Or might it be possible that rest has now become enduring and no change appears to mind? Either way, he has been instructed to stop. Something has been completed even if not him. He counts the manuscripts upon the shelf. They are nine in number and the digit feels complete. The nine play host to more than one thousand of the odes, each and every one a blessing to be discovered and savored. The nine are now...

Whether it's the big-hearted hooker, the henchman priest, the fate of poor Bobby Fischer, tripping with Tom O'Leary, or the last thoughts of a dying man, we are told their secrets by the only one who knows them all, The Storyteller. Yet what haunts the mind still lingers. What is his secret, or dare we ask? Well, here's what I think it is: I believe that each of the stories the aged one offers up contains one morsel of his mystery. When they are all ingested by the mind and the soul, they will reconstitute as one. It is truly a jigsaw puzzle of sorts in that, as each piece of the puzzle is...