A flight-of-fancy road trip across Taiwan taken by the protagonist and his recently departed bestie and dog (which only he can see) wends, as might be expected, between reality and imagination. As in life, exceptional encounters are experienced and absorbed along the way.

This pseudo-autobiographical travelogue follows a protagonist who, while never identified, shares a background similar to the author’s. Both are from Tainan, lost their fathers at a young age, have a mother with dementia, and have a best friend named Michael who died on a mountain trek and a recently departed pet dog named Fruit. The underlying premise of this story is: If I took off on a road trip now with Michael and Fruit, what adventures might we have?

It is because Michael and Fruit, who died just a few weeks from each other, oddly continue lingering around that the protagonist decides to take them on a road trip. While uncertain of what to expect, he is intently curious about what they’ll be discovering together. Along the way, besides interacting with locals such as an indie bookshop proprietor and country doctor, they cross paths with individuals like “Ms. Huang”, who can see Michael and they suspect of being a yellow-throated marten in human form, and “Leopard Cat”, a beautiful woman who drops by a café looking for someone to jump rope with. With each encounter, the protagonist ponders another facet of life and death.

As the narrative unfolds, we learn his thoughts on life and death spring from awareness he has brain cancer and his decision not to seek treatment. He is making this trip as one last “hurrah” on the way to the “full stop” of his life. But, will this increasingly off-the-rails vacation help or hinder our protagonist’s plans to depart this life with no regrets?

Weaving together iconic Taiwan scenery, character, and culture, this highly imaginative travelogue follows a lonely and damaged protagonist through a series of whimsical encounters peppered with nuggets of philosophical insight and wisdom.