Writings > Short Stories
Sometimes in Business Class
Here is a perfect book for airplane and armchair travelers; an alternative view of airlines, flying and destinations. Many people fly around the world from meeting to meeting, soaking up wine and the attention of airline stewards and stewardesses, clocking up free mileage, and working out tax breaks or how to sock away their travel allowances. But, as these stories about 1990s travel show, there is much to be learned along the way, from the airline wine tasters' ramblings, to the mystery of brown dogs in Dutch 17th century paintings, to the bus terminals beneath Rome's Augustine Gate, and possibly the real story behind the last tango in Paris.
Mostly in Economy Class
Mostly in Economy Class continues the ups and downs of flights and sights in Europe revealed in—and reveled in—Sometimes in Business Class, but this time in Asia—where adventure, surprise and wonder are around every corner, in incidents and events from the apparently trivial to the exotic to the erotic. Mostly in Economy Class begins with an adventure in China in the early 1980s that may or may not have ended in a dangerous escape to the west; the reader must decide. After the secret world of China, the tales move on to Thailand before and after its temples were overrun by tourists; two faces of Japan in the 1980s; Angkor Wat, Cambodia at a time when Khmer Rouge guns could be heard in the distance, and later after the guns were silenced; South Korea before it emerged as an economic powerhouse, when the country seemed to be almost in a parallel universe; life and poverty in Bangladesh; footpath etiquette in the quaint French quarter of Hanoi; post-Macdonald’s China; and more. Read on!
Coach Class to the Americas
Spanning the late 1980s to 2000, Coach Class to the Americas reveals aspects of life and times in the Americas that will probably not appear in history books—in short stories that take the reader from the lighter side of elections in Washington DC to fashions in Waikiki, from the guilt of sun seekers in Canada to the violence of fishers in the Galapagos Islands, from the grilles of US automobiles to the restrooms of Detroit airport, from altitude sickness in Quito to shrimp trapping in the Georgia Strait, to the big San Francisco quake of ’89, to poverty and homelessness both east and west, and the strange peril of Nanaimo.
The Fart of a Fly
A kindly visitor from another galaxy arrives to find Earth in a bad state. Humans have overrun the planet and are living on a knife’s edge, supported by increasingly higher technology to maintain life while the climate changes around them and even the gas from the fart of a fly could tip them over the edge. Calling himself Astral Traveler, or AT, he brings the two authors together, planting in their heads stories about the disastrous fate of his former planet, which was destroyed under similar conditions that he sees developing on Earth, and stories that illustrate those conditions on Earth—with the resulting future scenarios. The authors are unaware of AT but decide to write this book on the topic. The stories are mostly set in Australia, Paraguay and the Philippines. They include stories set in plausible futures as warnings of where we humans are heading and healing essays on simple changes to our way of life that promote better futures for both the planet and its peoples. AT also sends the authors on humorous or mysterious sidetracks when he finds something interesting for his readers back home.
Crying Trees, Killer Fish and Rental Corpses: Only in the Philippines
Which Asian country had a killer fish designed as a counter insurgency measure, a president who took over an island to make a private family game park of African wild animals; a revolution involving millions of people without bloodshed; coup plotters who took phone messages for you; more earthquakes, eruptions, floods, landslides and typhoons than just about any other country; a mountain where the bizarre becomes the ordinary; cities and villages where poverty and death display an innocent cheerfulness; corpses that are rented out to gamblers; and coral reefs that are home to more kinds of corals, fish and other marine life than anywhere else on the planet? Crying Trees, Killer Fish and Rental Corpses: Only in the Philippines follows a journey of discovery in the Philippines during the 1980s and 1990s, before globalization began to strip away its culture along with charming folk beliefs, corner stores and local markets.
Electric Angels and Pink Bikies: The Expatriate Life
Moving away from home, leaving the nest, could be the beginning of a voyage that ends in a faraway country we would not have even considered when we set out—until we got there and discovered its secrets, its culture, its undiscovered paradises. Half a lifetime ago, the author ended his voyage of discovery, in the Philippines, a country with one foot in the world of fairies and spirits, and where every event has an unusual twist, whether wedding or funeral, kidnapping or vasectomy, getting a driver’s license or getting a haircut. There are fascinating destinations far from the beaten track and a vibrant music scene that is everywhere present, even in the operating theater. Typhoons and earthquakes add a different kind of excitement. These events and experiences, sometimes comic or tragic, always compelling, are described herein.
With the Rise of the Wind
With the rise of the wind brings together short stories about the author’s thoughts and insights as he absorbs the wonder and mystery surrounding the shore on a tiny piece of the South China Sea. The rise of the wind draws out once buried thoughts and emotions dormant in the hearts of those who occasionally stand or sit near the shore and become hypnotized by the power and moods of the sea. There are little stories here also about the people living beside this sea on a coral-reef fringed provincial coast and the mountain behind it; about earthquakes and typhoons and their effects above and below the sea; about the lives of birds and snakes, of fish and starfish; with fragments of home-spun philosophy, biology, geology, meteorology, oceanography and volcanism, as well as idle thoughts about how the universe comes together at the shore.