A lonely man in his forties imagines a domestic life with a woman he briefly met who is interested in his furniture, but not his marriage proposal.

A man's lonely life focused on the pursuit of reason and music leaves him questioning what more there may be in the lives of other people and of religion.

During a voyage to Bangkok, a captain sets out for a side-trip to a small island where a lone writer has isolated himself, crafting the work of his lifetime so he may regain the glory he once had and rejoin his beloved.

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.

A starving man wandering the countryside finds solace in a young woman's cottage where she offers him food and rest. But when the young woman starts to behave as if the man is a threat, he must decide whether or not to live up to her fears.

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 lonely maiden is constantly reminded of her single status, working as an advertiser for a baby bed in New York. Seeking to make something of herself, she takes on both work and love with a passion, but only succeeds in one.

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.

Lynnie is a young, working-class girl who works at the Stone House in town and wastes her days making stories about the lives of the people around her, which she tells to her friend, Isobel. But when rumors start to circulate, Isobel mysteriously moves away, and Lynnie is left wondering why.

When an old woman sees her son straining to leave to see the world, she remembers her husband doing the same many years earlier. In a fierce battle pitting love against discovery and adventure, she does her utmost to set him free.