Daphne Kapsali

Don't let the title fool you: this isn't a morbid book. It's a collection of stories about death and dying, yes, but death isn't morbid in itself. Death is a fact, sudden or sad, tragic or inevitable, and it can leave us bereft - but it isn't morbid. Our perception of it often is. But it doesn't have to be. This is a collection of seven stories about death and dying, five of them new to this book and two published before, in another collection. They're a little about how we deal with death, the fact of it, and how we can never be prepared, no matter how much advance notice we have. They're a little about honouring the dead, a little about living in their honour, but mostly they're about being alive.The dead don't need anything from us; it's the living that need our kindness. All we can do for the dead, if we feel that something must be done, is to use the privileges of the living. To laugh, and cry, and ring the bells and turn up when we're needed. To find our better place in this life, and live it in the most uncontained way possible, and be more careful of the memories we make than the memories we'll keep.

If there's a theme tying these pieces together, perhaps it's identity, our constant quest for one that fits; that keeps fitting even as we change. We are scattered, like our stories, forever torn between people and places; we are all of us pulled this way and that by the different parts of our identities that don't necessarily fit together, at first glance, but still come together to make a whole. Perhaps, for me, writing is the thread I use to keep it from splitting apart. There are other themes, too: there is death and there is love (what else?), and the fear and the uncertainty that death and love both stoke and soothe. There is trust and jealousy; falling and finding your feet on ever-shifting ground. There are the negative feelings that we all succumb to, from time to time, the dark sides of our personalities, and the little sparks of joy that will eventually lead us back to where we want to be. And running through it all, that tentative thread of identity, the seams of who we are in this life, regardless of the where and the how; alone, for ourselves and for others.Perhaps uncollected would be a fairer description of the little book you're holding, but there is power in names, and I think the title I have chosen is more of a wish than a description; an invocation, almost a prayer. To be collected, and not scattered. To be collected, even when there are parts of you scattered all over the place. To be able to collect these parts, to bring them together in some loose, imperfect way, and make a thing that's meaningful. A thing that fits.

I am not an immigrant tonight. Tonight, I am a resident of the United Kingdom. But tomorrow: what? We are privileged, and we cannot conceive of a world where our right to live the lives we've built, where we've built them, could be challenged or taken away. But that is the world we live in, and it happens every day. Those refugees washing up on our borders and terrifying us: what do we think happened to them? They had lives, too, that they took for granted, in places they called home. They had rights that were snatched away. And here they are now, at our borders: unwanted, and wanting nothing but to be where they feel that they belong. These things happen, all over this world we live in, but not here. Not to us. But times change and rights are revoked, and it's happening: here, now, to us. We are exiled in the land of limbo, with the lives we've built in bundles on our backs, travelling in a direction entirely uncharted and we don't know, when we reach the borders, what we will find. It doesn't serve us right and it isn't fair and we don't deserve it, but it's humbling and perhaps a little humility is something we need. Along with the shock and the hurt and the indignation that we're feeling, justifiably, and the strength we'll need to muster to see us through. Along with the hope that we'll need to summon, because it's only hopeful voices, now, that have a chance of breaking through boundaries, of crossing the borders and being heard. That is our task, now; that is our responsibility: to find that hopeful voice, and let it be heard. Dignified but humble; understanding, at last, that we are not immune. That we are not too privileged to find ourselves outside; to be turned from us to them.NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR This book contains 4 essays on Brexit and its implications on UK and EU citizens alike. It is a very short book, and I have priced it as low as I could. I would obviously love for you to buy it and enjoy it, but I want you to know what you're getting Please consider the Kindle version, which is priced much lower. Thank you.

What if, sometimes, letting go isn't the right thing to do?This story begins at the end of a thing that hasn't ended, and travels in orbit in the space between then and not yet, circling questions unanswered and unasked, alternative endings and futures that never came to pass, looking for a place to land. It is the story of Anna and Jack and it's a love story, because all stories are, essentially, about love and the inexplicable things we do in its name and in its absence, in its pursuit and in its wake.