A blind American biologist living in Kenya collects shells from which a malaria-curing venom can seemingly be extracted. People from all over the world begin to visit his isolated home in search of the miraculous remedy.

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.

In a series of commentaries on the human condition — life, truth, happiness, death — a spinster sister takes in her dead sister’s children; a man is entranced by the endless waves which roll and crash in the ocean; a carpenter wrestles with the burden of being everyone’s confidante; a dying railroad crossing watchman shares a simple but complex wisdom.

A physically disabled man lives secluded in an Essex lighthouse for over ten years, where he finds meaning in caring for birds on the beach. When a little girl stumbles upon his studio and brings him a wounded Canadian snow goose, he experiences a fulfilling human connection for the first time in his life.

A stranded group from a shipwreck don masks and hunt people in order to survive.

By trampling the grass as he walks the same route over and over to gather clams, an elderly man makes space for a bounty of primroses to flourish, which allows the moths and other pollinators to thrive. When he dies, the roses and moths follow suit.

A boy finds a mysterious caterpillar-like creature in the forest one day. He brings it home and kills it to add to his wildlife collection, but becomes haunted by creatures he can no longer control.

A young sailor rents a room while waiting for his ship and befriends his neighbor—a peculiar middle-aged gentleman with a hobby for wood carving.

A surly seaman on leave from his tanker, the Tanner Compton, roams a forrest and finds an unexpected friend in a young local girl.

Following her father's death, a woman moves into a cheap apartment complex and attends AA meetings while her mother channels her grief into constructing an elaborate enclosure for a desert tortoise she wishes to adopt.