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.

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.

As a woman grows older, she falls into a deep sadness while the men around her constantly tell her to cheer up.

A man reflects on the loneliness of his childhood home, where his family would fervently clean the house every Saturday for guests on Sunday who would never show.

After he is kicked out of his house, a husband spends his days sleeping under a flowering pear tree in the front yard, his wife hatefully observing.

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.

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.

A man who firmly believes he does not love the woman he felt obligated to marry begins to realize the gravity of losing her after she ventures into the woods one stormy evening.

A slice of grim parts of life

Volatile housewife Angelina wavers from incident to incident in her personal life, culminating in a suicide attempt. After suffering a tumble down the church steps, a falling out with her husband, and the death of her beloved dog, volatile housewife Angelina attempts suicide.