Midas had returned to Toronto with a new business plan. After years of big deals in the South, he decided to do it better. It was always so hard to make money and do good at the same time. With his indie café he’d do both. But this reinvention comes at a mysterious price as strange visitors arrive with insistent business propositions. Making it more difficult, the town he’d left is as overwhelmed by the notorious sins as everywhere else, buckling under ecological decay, a weakened state, and rampant fraud and violence. As Midas defends his café, his world morphs in bizarre and threatening ways. One wonders if his growing horror is real or a distraught misperception of reality, and a clue comes from an unlikely place: his favourite customer. Zora has her own troubles. A progressive artist, she’d recently quit a revolutionary movement, until she’s drawn back in. Zora’s journey and perception of reality morph too, and both she and Midas participate in a grander struggle over the absurd elusiveness of truth.

Paul MacLeod has worked in law, public sector management and business in several capacities over his career, always with an abiding interest in access to justice. Eventually, he turned to creative writing in his spare time. This is his first published work of fiction.

Paul MacLeod's profile page