Tales around the Coal-Burning Stove

Who's to say whether fiction or non-fiction contain the greatest truths? Like the blind men each groping a different part of the elephant to try to describe the whole, so it might be that Frederick Langridge's great observation — "Two men look out through the same bars; One sees the mud, and one the stars" — is the axle around which turns individual perspective and hence individual variances in the ethereal realm lablled reality. It might be that short stories — of which this work is a compilation — told in the province of so-called make-believe, or, in some cases, blossoming out of the story of experiences, might more truly reflect better human foibles, weaknesses, strengths, shortcomings, comprehensions, flaws, love, judgement, epiphanies, inspirations, endurance, adaptability, hopelessness and hope than self-serving or limited histories, biographies, auto-biographies and commentaries. I pray that I have written something that might enrich, entertain or inspire readers.