This book won't map out your journey, nor is it an itinerary of the writing Scotland has produced so far. Rather, like the boldest of trailblazers, it seeks out what we have not seen before; places and people we have not yet inhabited.

Together we are travellers who have a map but no reservations, ready to discover infinite landscapes as we go. Are you ready for the trip?

Excerpted from A Fictional Guide to Scotland by Meaghan Delahunt, Suhayl Saadi, Elizabeth Reeder. Copyright © 2003. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
In the Beginning - Kate Tregaskis
The room feels close. Myrtle can smell her brothers, a sweet near-nothing smell like spit. Air whistles though Tom's nose as he breathes. It seems too soft, as if he were sipping rather than drinking deep. Baby she can't hear. She gets up to check he is OK, opening the blinds slightly. His eyeballs twitch, animals stirring under blankets. His lashes flutter on his cheek.

Halcyon Days - Laura Stewart
The Gods gave Ava Kingfisher lips like cherry sweets: plump, sticky and unreal red. They formed a perfect bow drawn taut over strong white teeth, which women feared would fire off suggestive arrows aimed at their husbands' hearts.
The Gods carved Miss Kingfisher's exquisitely shaped shoulders from the finest Carrara marble and made them strong enough to carry the burden of a single mother's load.
They bestowed on her two almond-shaped emeralds for eyes. And they gave her a storyteller's voice: rich and low, as beguiling as smoke caught behind a glass.

Happy Hour - Thomas Duncan
Ten past three in the afternoon. Through habit I commit the time to memory, then twist the key in the lock to let myself in.
Sometimes she's right there on the threshold as I push the door ajar, bursting through the tiny crack of freedom as if pursued by the Devil himself. But not this time. This time it's the stench of alcohol that charges past me into the warm August sunshine; a desperate, but doomed, bid to become one with the sweet scent of freshly mown grass. What is it about this house, I ask myself, that makes it so abhorrent to all things?

Flying - Kirsten Gow
She jumped you know. All the way down. From the roof of the school gymnasium to the soft ground below. Not soft enough as it turned out.
They say she wanted to know if she could fly; to feel the upward rush of air past her skin and through her hair. And so she paced the flat asphalt roof --up and down, right to left, east to west - intently examining the rough grey surface as it passed beneath her moving feet. And we all watched, stomachs firmly knotted and rising in our throats. Frozen solid on that summer's afternoon.

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