Add to ORKGThe short stories that make up my thesis aspire to move lightly and playfully within their small narrative frames. Apart from frequent satirical lightness, there is a speculative process at work throughout all of the stories, usually on the part of a first person narrator whose individual consciousness and self-exploration drives the narrative. Each of these stories is hybridized by philosophical meditations upon the theme of true individuality, playing out in worlds that remain a little distant from the social realities of contemporary culture. My hope is to allow the imaginative stimulus some purer function beyond the often oppressive nature of our information and materialistic culture where one can scarcely find their own inner rhythm....