A man reflects on the past week while an unexpected storm rages outside, and he compares the events that follow with the fall of the Roman Empire.

Four women–a retired dancer enacting an old dance, a grandmother preparing a birthday dinner for her family, her granddaughter participating in a genetics study, and a researcher quantifying the burden of old memories–all unite under the combined weight of their war-burdened pasts in the contemporary United States.

In the quarantine stage of the 2020 pandemic, a woman and her husband reflect on their marriage, how time has somehow conflated, making them, at once, who they are now and who they used to be.

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.

Throughout her life, a young woman from the future has gathered evidence about her ancestors to understand the way they lived before and during the era when society was reimagined.

After the collapse of civilization, a group of men meets weekly to read classic novels and listen to records on a portable phonograph, bringing them great joy but unbearable distress at remembering how the world used to be.

As a man tosses out his old things during the pandemic, he thinks back to the lives he lived with them.

While recovering from a serious illness, a ninety-year-old scientist wades through his patchy memory, piecing together fragments of images and emotions from his childhood as an immigrant in the once-moving American 1940s. He thinks about his admiration for airplanes, which have been outlawed in this alternate history. He considers how such scientific advancements can also bring about great destruction.

A humanoid immortal figure lives through the years following the death of her friend. As she watches the last of her friend's lineage die after 600 years, she reflects on the nature of her relationship with the friend.

An old woman experiences several blackouts as she approaches death.