A collection of seven short stories - each with a twist in the tale! Ian George takes you on an eternal journey, a false identity, through faithless cynicism, a fairy tale, lost love, a predator back to another eternal journey. Seven tales that challenge beliefs and question faith, that break down the barriers between love and hate, life and death.1.Don't go Home Tonight'You damn bitch, ' he spat the words. She recoiled from his raised hand as he slipped his fingers through his attractively tousled hair. The smile on his handsome face was a humourless triumphant snarl. He enjoyed controlling her without touching, he was a puppet master and she was his marionette. 2.The AvatarHe had not tried to hold her. Perhaps that was why he had lost her in the first place, because he did not try hard enough.He remembered watching her retreating back. The door had slammed with such finality behind her, he knew it was over. He had not seen her since.But there she was, staring in monochromatic blankness out of the front page of the newspaper, every bit as beautiful, even in newsprint.3.The Inn on Primrose HillThe Gibbet, he had read, was an Inn that had once occupied a prime location, but had found itself isolated by the arrival of the motor car. In particular, the arrival of a motorway that cut directly through, over, or under, obstacles instead of snaking around them. Thus in one sweep of a planner's pencil, the oxygen of passing trade had been cut off. It had extinguished the life of the inn as abruptly as the blade of a guillotine steals away a life. 4.The Woodcutter's SonThe old woman was sitting on a tree stump, her needles clicking industriously and with such amazing speed they were no more than a blur. Even as they stared in disbelief, the pink knitted scarf, it looked like a scarf, grew visibly longer. Now it hung down to the tree stump, now to the ground, now folding in a pile under her dangling feet.As she worked, she gazed at them with eyes like deep water, surface sparkling as from the light of a sinking sun. Green eyes they were, a green that shifted green as grass, green as emeralds, green as moss. They were drawn into the cool refreshing water, away from fire beams and fear, away from the memory of sudden death.5.The Letter Opener'Oh come on, which of you is pushing it!' protested the pretty young woman, her brown eyes wide with excitement as they followed the orbit of the upturned sherry glass. At just nineteen, she was the youngest of the five whose forefingers spread from the bottom of the glass like the spokes of a peculiar wheel.'I don't think any one person is, Ira, ' asserted Dylan, a handsome young man sporting a deliberately cultivated unshaven look. She felt his piercing blue eyes would turn her to jelly if she did not focus on the glass...Two bonus short stories...6. When her lift home fails to arrive, cold, dripping wet and uncomfortable, she forgets her mothers warnings and accepts a lift with a stranger.7. Some jobs seem to last an eternity.