This is Struan Sinclair's first collection of short stories. His stories present an accessible and familiar world seething with ambiguity and surprise as his characters struggle both to transform and understand their lives.
The day Merrie's landlords phone with the news, Alex deliberately empties his head. He tilts it and shakes out each ear. Then he sits down and reads, to fill up his head in a new way. In a freebie envirobabble magazine, he finds an article cataloguing airborne pollutants, thousands of them. According to this article, the world is a giant circular exhaust pipe. No place or person exists outside the loop. Everything breathed is shared. This idea at once repels and fascinates Alex. He lets it occupy him.
It occurs to Alex that messy air is a problem he can maybe solve for himself. He finds a do-it-yourself store, flips through the racks of industrial filters. There don't seem to be major differences, so he plumps for something called "The LungGuard". He likes the idea of a sentry at the gate of his mouth. It tickles him.
