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.

In Michigan, a recently divorced professor reflects on what it means to exist, first alone in his empty apartment and then alongside his student in a mission to find a missing girl.

As a university professor acts as a sounding board for everyone else’s problems, her own stress mounts to a dangerous peak.

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.

A female professor at a contemporary university remembers an old conversation with a former teacher of hers, which prompts her to reconsider her job, solitude, and love of reading.

In a society where civilians are monitored by personality tests that surveil whether they are being perfect citizens, a 1970s high school teacher meets an over-achieving student who forces him to confront the forced boredom dominating his own life.

In the early 1970s, a listless radical must decide what to do with his life as his social circle of grassroots activists dwindles.

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

When a friendly resident at a retirement home starts to decline in health and popularity, a woman reflects on what it means to grow old when there’s no one to look out for you.

A man looks back on his father-in-law's life after he passes away, thinking of the many jobs he held and his military service.