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.

As a teenage girl stumbles upon a mysterious portal leading her to a utopian, magical world, her storyline converges with that of the author—a middle-aged, married mother of two who has come out as asexual to her husband—leading both to a reckoning with their unfulfilling romantic relationships and deepest desires.

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

A woman who is not content with life and fears staying in one place works as a traveling writer, recording her thoughts and interactions on tape recorders and finding different lovers in each place she visits.

A research psychologist visits a peculiar asylum patient who recounts his life story. The patient warns the researcher about how obsession with the pursuit of knowledge can make one lose sight of their humanity until it is unsalvageable.

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

During a voyage to Bangkok, a captain sets out for a side-trip to a small island where a lone writer has isolated himself, crafting the work of his lifetime so he may regain the glory he once had and rejoin his beloved.

A young man who has wasted his life finds himself sucked into a non-human world — a gray, ghostly landscape to which those who don't make use of their time are drawn, potentially forever.

An unknown tribe takes in a lost traveler, who must decide whether to accept her new identity and relationships or return to her past life in America.

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