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

A woman on a generation ship is offered the chance of immortality, and ultimately lives long enough to become part of subsequent 'waves' of human evolution - from man, to immortal, to machine, to pure energy - over countless millennia.

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.

After a retired inventor becomes widowed, he decides to take Latin classes and falls for his teacher despite his grief and hesitations.

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.

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.

In a faraway future, humans have sunk to the bottom of the food chain, with animals leading society and taking charge of the world. Despite animals' hatred for humans, a smart, observant horse becomes interested in a strange human girl, one who doesn't seem to fit in with her group.

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.

With climate disaster looming in Florida's future, a struggling single mother finds herself battling crippling insomnia as she worries about her daughter's future.