Nothing lasts forever. Everything is ephemeral. Time slips by, people change, happiness is fleeting. Neil Williamson's collection of bittersweet tales features eighteen stories of impermanence: from the ends of love affairs and the brief sanity of wartime convalescence, to the fading away of old languages and the dying of humanity itself. An artist communicates solely through a bizarre mosaic, a father and his dying daughter seek hope in plague-ridden Scotland, a London pensioner's existence is inextricably bound to that of his pet canary, and in the jungles of Borneo a criminal searches for his missing son hoping for reconciliation before the end of the world. This edition includes four bonus stories, including one written specially for this collection, and each story has a newly-written afterword.