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 slice of grim parts of life

By trampling the grass as he walks the same route over and over to gather clams, an elderly man makes space for a bounty of primroses to flourish, which allows the moths and other pollinators to thrive. When he dies, the roses and moths follow suit.

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 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.

In limbo between life and death after falling five hundred feet into a cement mixer, a construction worker reflects on the nature of love.

Terrence and Ruth, a middle-aged couple, move house for a fresh start - but their new house is in disrepair. Ruth contends with sickness, unfulfillment, and her staling marriage while laboriously cleaning it.

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.

In this metafiction, the many lives of an unnamed man are scrutinized as he passes through millennia.

A woman who has moved to the countryside to write a chapter on an American philosopher reflects on and recovers from her recent miscarriage.