When a woman talks to a man in bed, their conversation reminds her of a short story she read earlier, and she wonders if she is stupid like the story's character.

A woman dealing with conflicting emotions resorts to deliberately putting herself in danger to learn to value the life she's been given - but these unorthodox methods leave her more desperate than ever.

After kicking her husband out and changing the locks, a mother imagines he is still living with her, distant and uninterested in sex. Lying in bed, she conjures up old memories and imagines new ones, grappling with questions of selfhood, identity, womanhood, and motherhood. One night, her real husband returns, and she lets him back in.

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.

In discussing the altercations witnessed over the course of the day, Stephen Elwin and his family grapple with question of whether the downtrodden and those burdened by prejudice are nonetheless responsible for their own breeding and behavior. Elwin’s earnest and idealistic daughter Margaret valiantly defends their maid, who happens to be Black and also named Margaret, until she witnesses 'the other Margaret' breaking a piece of artwork.

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.

Following a late-stage divorce, a woman suffering from depression and nostalgic for childhood reflects on her romantic and sexual history and her relationship with her mother.

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.

When a young boy witnesses an odd event from the window of his small-town house, he begins to doubt the stability of the world around him.

After an assistant professor mistakes an endangered albatross for a duck and kills it, she reevaluates how she perceives others and how others perceive her as the assumptions she makes about others threaten her job and her marriage.