'This city whose name is lost to memory is as big as any dream and as oppressive as any nightmare. These are stories and poems from the city and the outskirts that attempt to keep it at bay. Explore the streets, ride the buses, climb the highest towers and listen to the inhabitants as they wrestle for the truth within their various sorrows and joys' 'Various Sorrows & Joys' is a collection of short stories and poems that take place within a vast, sprawling city without name or identity. Larger than any dream, more oppressive than any nightmare, it is a place of everything. It is all things to all people, from the beginning of time and until the end of their days, and this is our peon to the inhabitants of that city and all their various hopes and dreams.