Paulo da costas stories get under your skin, bruise your consciousness with their exploration of the forces that hold us together, not always benignly, and those that pull us apart. A hunter and cougar ponder the positions of predator and prey under the dense canopy of a West Coast forest. A nine-year-old tells her stuffed rabbit, Carrot, that its not as easy to run away as she thought, especially when someone is following her. These stories dazzle and beguile: with their craft, their often dark humour, their grasp of people living the extremity that is daily life.