A man walks with a writer around London who tells him about the novel he wrote that was lost which can never be matched in beauty by any other.

A divorced 16 year old girl reflects on how the sexual trauma she experienced as a child perpetuates in her relationships with men throughout her life, forcing herself to grow up too early and leaving her starved for affection and love.

After a drunk college boy falls off a balcony, a slew of characters--a groundskeeper, another student, a chaplain, and an RA--relate to his death in different ways. Their stories are sidelined for the core matter: that a boy died.

A son tells a series of stories, most of them about his father and stepfather. As the son describes a robbery that took place at his house in high school and his experiences with his father, a former Jehovah's Witness and current alcoholic, he begins to recall details from his childhood.

After a young man runs away and is said to be hiding in a canyon, his co-worker sets out to find him and ends up sharing his painful backstory of fear and lost opportunity.

A man from New York recalls his most poignant memories, realizing they were all moments when others had needed something from him and he had let them down.

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.

The tragic loss of his childhood friend puts a boy on the path of religion - but his inner feelings remain as repressed and turbulent as they always were.

A middle-aged man tells his son the story of how he once killed a man while driving when he was younger, and another about how his first wife—his wife before son's mother that the son knew nothing about—suddenly passed away.

An ordinary man gets an inch and a half of mention in the newspaper after stumbling into a low stakes rescue — and the small bit of fame sends him spiraling down a dark, egotistical path.