A dying woman lies in a hospital bed and appropriates another patient's identity to acquire her coveted blackcurrant cordial...and her visitor. A man adopts the role of detective to satisfy - with disastrous consequences - his curiosity about his wife's friend. A monkey is given a computer and uses it to update a Shakespearian Tragedy. People begin journeys and never end them, or live through lifetimes in the space of a single dream.

This collection brings together prize-winning and critically acclaimed stories: encompassing both the poignant realism of bereavement or childhood night terrors, and the fantastical realms of an alternative Garden of Eden.

Ranging across the globe, from the Welsh coast to Genoa, and from Kansas to Khartoum, the thread that binds these stories is one of dislocation and deception, the insidious power of memory, and of those seemingly un-momentous decisions that, once made, can change the course of a life.