This is a collection of various pieces of short fiction addressing similar or related themes and employing comparable narrative technique. These largely character driven pieces attempt to explore those ties which bind human beings to one another, as well as the barriers to connection and communication. These pieces explore issues of identity, and how one's knowledge of other people plays a fundamental role in that process or creation of identity. Relationships with family, friends, and strangers are used to examine the effect which basic differences in ideology within those relationships have on the formation of one's identity, while demonstrating an awareness of the role which the shared human characteristic of mortality has in one's identification with others and the self.