Efforts to protect a great leader by creating doubles of him become increasingly drastic, and the true reality of the situation grows more and more unclear as the president is sheltered away in the name of protection and nationalism.

A writing critic reviews the construction of Charles Chesnutt’s stories and how to write surfiction.

A young couple obsessed with syntax sets off to meet their favorite author.

Following a messy breakup, an MIT graduate and a PhD student at Indiana University separately talk about the problems in their former relationship in two spliced-together conversations, exploring conflicts surrounding language, intimacy, commitment, and intellectualism.

When a Soviet state official attempts to coerce a celebrated poet into apologizing for a political joke he made, the official gets a taste of his own predatory medicine at the hand of the poet's vengeful wife.

After returning the I CAN SPEAK mask for babies, which plays and simulates sophisticated speech, a woman receives a lengthy letter from an overly-enthusiastic sales rep about the mask's ability to make babies more intelligent and loveable.

A Los Angeles speech pathologist is assigned to the case of a presumably mentally-ill woman who speaks in gibberish that turns out to be Old English. When the woman disappears, deciphering her mysterious writing leads the pathologist to wonder if she has stumbled across a time traveler.

In an increasingly inappropriate recorded message to a customer, a department store clerk compares their product complaint to kangaroos he saw at the local zoo.

A man reflects on the past week while an unexpected storm rages outside, and he compares the events that follow with the fall of the Roman Empire.

A charismatic banker pretends to have a twin brother so intensely that he is able to pull off a high-stakes robbery only to become his pseudo-self in the process.