A weekend vacation rekindles the joy and pain of youth. A search for historical truth reveals a hundred-year-old secret. A quest for new life redefines loneliness. A search for meaning unlocks the awesome power of a single word. A decades-long Cold War in the vast reaches of space suddenly heats up. A New Garden of Eden unleashes a new kind of Serpent. A mournful journey becomes the beginning of hope. These are some of the stories, some of the voyages, some of the discoveries, in this collection by Melvyn Chase. Sometimes you will travel no further than the next town. Sometimes the journey will take you far across the reaches of time and space. But don't be too sure that you know where you are headed. Your destination may not be what it seems to be. And getting there is all about discovery. Melvyn Chase's public relations career spans more than thirty-five years. When he retired from corporate life, he continued to work as a consultant, but also returned to his first love: fiction. His approach is eclectic. His stories may be serious or humorous, soothing or scary, here-and-now or who-knows-when. He says that his characters determine the style and setting of each story, and that he tries not to interfere. And, he adds, they often surprise him. Chase was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. He earned a B.A. in English Literature at Brooklyn College and an M.A. at New York University. He and his wife, a retired editor and publicist, live in suburban Connecticut, only a short drive from their son and daughter and four grandchildren.