After spending his adult life under the shadow of his father, a former NSA whistleblower, a man comes to terms with his complicated family history and what he wants for his own future.

A graduate student, on a trip in the Sonoran Desert, contemplates quitting her PhD program and moving on with life.

An accomplished but ineffectual columnist searches for fulfillment, until a death in the family causes him to question the family he took for granted.

In this metafiction, the many lives of an unnamed man are scrutinized as he passes through millennia.

A lonely middle-aged widow goes through his daily routine in the suburbs, looking to make small talk with someone, anyone, just to have occasion to get out of his own head.

Going through his daily motions, a Delaware farmer stops for a second to reminisce on an intimate near-death experience he shared with a mysterious boy during World War II.

A Confederate officer begrudgingly fights in the American Civil War until his disastrous last battle helps seal the fate of the war for good. After the war, he constantly repents for his critical mistakes until, decades later, he comes to a shocking revelation about the fateful battle.

An aging electrical engineer's intensifying sensation of detachment culminates in a series of debilitating headaches. As he works through fatigue, setbacks, and pain, he finally confronts the source of his desolation.

A man's lonely life focused on the pursuit of reason and music leaves him questioning what more there may be in the lives of other people and of religion.

An overly sympathetic woman never allows herself room for hatred— even as her suffocating boss stalks and harasses her.