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 writer wakes up every day hoping each day would be the day he finally manages to write, though each day he finds new reasons to delay his writing.

With plans to head home the minute the clock strikes 4:30, a young girl arrives at a birthday party fashionably late and realizes she is the only guest who came.

A middle-aged woman looks forward to growing old because she believes older people are less beholden to other's expectations, but her friend disagrees.

When her co-worker returns pregnant and happy from a year of travel, a seventh grade English teacher reflects on her dissatisfaction with her own life and her longing for decisiveness.

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

Caught up in memories of the past, a woman remembers a fateful summer dinner party at the start of World War II that left her family more divided than ever.

A woman tries to convince her husband to quit his exhausting job as a traveling salesman. She reflects on the impossibility of having everything that she wants.

A divorced 16 year old girl reflects on how the sexual trauma she experienced as a child perpetuates in her relationships with men throughout her life, forcing herself to grow up too early and leaving her starved for affection and love.