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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

In a small rural farm town, a middle-aged poet struggles with aging and finding meaning in his life.

A young contemporary couple housesitting in St. Martin, France, playact at homeownership and encounter the romantic misfortunes of a life of mild poverty and artistic creation.