This is a collection of short stories probing beneath the surface of untroubled domesticity Images from the natural world become symbols both of intoxicating freedom and menacing anarchy Eve is attracted and repelled by the ants in her kitchen Margaret obsessively feeds a spider on her balcony for days the threat of rats haunts a lonely housewife Other stories examine our relationship to death an hysterical giggle when a coffin shoots into the cremation chamber a young man wandering through a grey land followed by his mind in the form of an argumentative black dog