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.

On the Great Plains, an aging farmer and his wife struggle to sell their produce amid an increase in frozen food manufacturing. The farmer must figure out how to avoid the fate of his neighbors, who were pushed out of business and into welfare dependence.

A pessimistic father's belief that the world is actively against him and his family displaces his frustration on his wife and son. His opinion may prove to be correct after his child succumbs to a sudden illness.

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.

Stinging from his recently cut-off engagement, a young man retreats to a small town in the mountains of Virginia to work as city editor of the local newspaper. Alternately entranced and disgusted with his hermit-like nocturnal life, he finds peace and pleasure listening to the St. Anthony Chorale.

Upon hearing news of his wife’s poor state of health after giving birth, a man quickly boards a train home and deludes himself into thinking his wife is well.

An aging electrical engineer's intensifying sensation of detachment culminates in a series of debilitating headaches. As he works through fatigue, setbacks, and pain, he finally confronts the source of his desolation.

A young news reporter writes about a peculiar man in his mid-50s who is impoverished and suffers from a chronic illness — but when the man is accused of lying, the news reporter must decide whether to continue reporting the ill man's story or to accept that his claims are false.

An unemployed man struggles to help an equally penniless, yet shockingly beautiful, young woman in her search for food and shelter.

Jaded architect John Cashmore begins finding fault with the greed and ambition of everyone around him, dissolving into erratic behavior on a business trip as he desperately tries to reckon with lost dreams and hopelessness.