The Gate 2: 13 Tales of Isolation and Despair

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When I was young, I loved being alone. I would sit in my room for hours, writing stories or drawing comic books, oblivious to the outside world. I cherished those solitary moments, so much so that when my parents punished me I took it as a blessing. There was so much joy to be had in isolation, so many places my young mind could go if there weren’t outside influences to distract me.

Then I grew up.

After being married and having a family, I came to realize that my secluded personal time was a fleeting ideal. I longed for it, wishing, just wishing, that somehow I’d be left alone for an hour, a day, a week. It wasn’t until my subsequent divorce, when I had more lonely nights to wallow in depression than I could have wished for, that I realized how much of a folly my previous desire for solitude had been.

Hence I came to the dual themes of this anthology: isolation and despair. They are states of being seemingly unique to the human condition, and after going through my own dark time experiencing just how miserable life can be when you’re cut off from your previous existence, it has fascinated me. Many of the stories I’ve written over the years have dealt with these very same premises, and it has long been my desire to see how other authors deal with them in their own writings.

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