A city employs people to act strangely to order to make others feel normal.

In intense discussion a group leader ponders aloud, asking why hermits hide and what defines outcasts, among other cerebral queries. A group of friends discusses the oddities they have seen and perceived in their lives leather-clad hermits and criminal astronauts among them. They debate the purpose of hermitage, the classification of outcasts, and the purpose of their own reflections.

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.

A nameless person tells a story of when they had an intimate conversation over dinner with a former schoolmate whom they idealized.

Faced with the consequences of his actions, a scientist decides to live in fantasy rather than confront the pain he's caused.

Onstage at a club, a lesbian couple perform a sexually explicit act, aroused by a complex ruse they construct using ventriloquism.

In a futuristic, interplanetary empire where most people are clones of each other, a group of three people—a girl who is the Empress's clone, her childhood friend who loves her, and her servant whom she adores—plot treason against the Empress.

On a cold night in Indianapolis, a chance meeting brings two lonely divorcees together. For the night, they pretend to be a happy couple, hoping to work through the problems of their past relationships, grasping for some kind of genuine human connection.

A mysterious stranger comes to Mississippi and challenges a town's infamous duelist.

Will Williams, a young Black man, recounts the moment the trajectory of his life changed —when he met his doppelgänger, who became bent on sabotaging Will's life.