An ex-Marine is locked in an attic by his aunt, who wants to separate him from his addictions. During a sudden hurricane and flood, he reflects on the horrors of war and contemplates death.

After a terrible accident, a boy and his family spend the next years in a depression that verges masochism.

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.

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.

Shipwrecked on a planet whose extreme environment speeds their heart rates, generations of humans age rapidly, living only 8 days each and warring with one another for a cavern that extends the human lifespan to 11 days. When a young man and his girlfriend make it to the only remaining, functional ship, they find that, on the ship, their heartrates and lifespans are extended to normal.

A writer dying of gangrene in the African savannah reflects on his past experiences and the stories he will never write as he converses with his wife.

After fleeing Germany in the wake of World War II, two immigrants struggle to adjust to a new life of labor and hardship on an American farm.

In an unlikely encounter, a homeless teenage boy recounts harsh events of his life to a writer. He nonchalantly tells of an employer whose assignments caused him to have permanent physical and mental damage.

A young man contracts an intestinal disease as he travels to a tropical island and chooses to fast for his physical and spiritual health. As he develops an intimacy with the island, he becomes convinced that this fast will cure his illness — despite what other Western travelers believe.

A research psychologist visits a peculiar asylum patient who recounts his life story. The patient warns the researcher about how obsession with the pursuit of knowledge can make one lose sight of their humanity until it is unsalvageable.