A woman considers her possible shortcomings when her boyfriend tells her that he doesn’t like some things about her. After a period of reflection, she acknowledges the futility of self-deprecation.

When a perpetually unlucky Nigerian American law school dropout meets her parents’ dream son-in-law, she has to pick between finally meeting her parents’ expectations for her and retaining control over her own life, as tempestuous and miserable as it is.

A writer wakes up every day hoping each day would be the day he finally manages to write, though each day he finds new reasons to delay his writing.

When a woman finds her purse stolen, she retraces the steps of her eventful day only to realize that the encounters, and her life as a whole, are empty and purposeless.

After being laid off from his job, a man struggles to find meaning in a utopian world where all of his basic needs are already met for him.

A college counselor watches anxiously as her teenage son applies to college without her help. As her son plans for his future, the counselor and her husband reflect on how quickly their lives have changed, seeking ways to steady themselves in the midst of middle age.

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

A man tells his life story leading up to his suicide, attempting to explain the seemingly-inescapable mental paradoxes he found himself facing in his quest to be an authentic person, which reinforced, time after time, his belief that he was a fraud.

A disaffected teenager skips school to mourn his dead dog and tries to puzzle out the missing variable in his life.

Following his breakup, a Japanese college student uses savings from his relationship as a means to quit his summer mowing job, but not without first helping a woman who asks, but doesn't appear to need, for her lawn to be mowed.