A young boy and his sisters gather beautiful shells on the beach as mementos of a country they will leave behind. A poor woman in the boondocks gives birth to a mudfish. Dead lovers buried beneath a hotel ruined by an earthquake reach out to each other. These and other memorable characters inhabit Danton Remoto’s book of stories and tales. Some of the stories poke fun at a colourful but violent dictatorship, or track the same-sex love in a young man’s heart. Others are cheeky rewriting of rural lore and urban legends. These stories are meant to entertain but also to instruct: why the present is just a re-looping of the past, and why love remains constant and true even beyond death.