The following short stories vary in theme and subject matter. “A Velvet Glove” is a very early effort in my experiments with Poetic Realism. The expectation of love in contrast with the expectation of a professional life was the theme that I had in mind when I wrote it. But the question of just how heavily we invest our human spirit in a given enterprise, be it love or industry, was the hidden message. “The Foreigner” was actually written in 1999, and presages the contemporary trials of the foreign-born. The ambiguity of the truth of the protagonist’s story is the engine that drives every philosophical question that the story creates. And, finally, “The Artist” is more of a fable than a true dramatic story, a cautionary tale about the possession of talent and those who would misconstrue its bearing in the world. When I wrote it I intended no indictment of those who would let their envy of another’s art corrupt their appreciation of it. Consider it an allegory whose interpretation may take the form of more than one chimera.