This is my second collection of fragments and daydreams. Each piece began as a small spark – a remembered gesture, a passing comment, a story someone once told me, or simply a stubborn image that refused to fade with time. Some readers will call it fiction. I’m not sure that word fits as neatly as it seems. I’m tempted to believe that pure fiction doesn’t exist. Everything we write comes from somewhere inside us: memories, fears, regrets, or wishes we never quite dared to live out. Stories, then, are just autobiographies in disguise – small pieces of ourselves dressed up in other people’s names, more or less interesting depending on the writer’s skill, the reader’s patience, and whatever mood both happen to be in that day. We all exaggerate. We all borrow. We steal moments from other people’s lives, reshuffle the stories we’ve heard, polish our failures, and imagine the versions of ourselves who chose differently, loved more bravely, or behaved less foolishly. Even the wildest science fiction, populated with impossible worlds and strange creatures, never quite escapes the gravity of the human heart. No matter how far we stretch imagination, we still end up tracing the same familiar questions within the limits of our own intelligence. ***** As in the first volume, each short story here is introduced by a quote (or quotes) from someone whose wisdom or talent has touched the world – people we would all do well to know, or to know better. Think of their words as the dressing on this odd little salad of half-serious reflections and wandering thoughts. If any of my fragments feel a bit pale or under-seasoned, I hope those voices will add the missing flavor.