Book excerpt: An unhappy soldier guards the barracks gate in Brisbane and wishes for freedom ... a recovering addict in Fremantle learns about life, death and friendship while trying to get his life together in NA ... an Adelaide man's recently deceased uncle teaches him about the meaning of life ... and a girl vanishes somewhere near Alice Springs, never to be seen again. These are just some of the characters in Lewis Woolston's new story collection 'Remembering the Dead and Other Stories'. In these snapshots from the fringes of Australian society, the past is never entirely done, the dead are not forgotten, and life takes turns both funny and tragic.