As she walks alongside the Hudson River with her friend, a woman excitedly explains her intricate vision of what would give her happiness.

After the loss of their newborn, a man goes on an obsessive house hunt in a new city to prepare for his depressed wife's arrival.

Terrence and Ruth, a middle-aged couple, move house for a fresh start - but their new house is in disrepair. Ruth contends with sickness, unfulfillment, and her staling marriage while laboriously cleaning it.

Eventually it came to pass that no one ever had to die, unless they ran out of money. Then, unless they were so horrible that society had to dispose of them. Then, unless wanted to or could be talked into it. Then, no one would die so long as they had just one person who loved them.

Two people die of drug overdose and flu and never meet each other, never get married, and never live their seedy, disappointing lives.

As the end of the world approaches a wealthy artists’ community, a long-married couple stays with their friends and attends nihilistic, indulgent suicide parties.

After her lover abandons her for someone else, a woman plummets to her death on a Monday night, only to return as a ghostly presence who finds none of her problems solved.

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

A depressed woman drives her friends and therapist crazy, going ceaselessly on about the childhood trauma she incurred during her parents’ divorce settlings.

An elderly woman prepares for her death, but is anxious for someone to listen to her precious memories and cherish them after her death.