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.

As she wanders in and out of forests to escape her past and the boy she feels guilty for wanting, a woman gives birth to and abandons a child she thinks of as the physical embodiment of her sin.

A wife leaves her husband in order to ensure his ultimate salvation after they are rejected from the Christian church for their polygamist marriage.

In discussing the altercations witnessed over the course of the day, Stephen Elwin and his family grapple with question of whether the downtrodden and those burdened by prejudice are nonetheless responsible for their own breeding and behavior. Elwin’s earnest and idealistic daughter Margaret valiantly defends their maid, who happens to be Black and also named Margaret, until she witnesses 'the other Margaret' breaking a piece of artwork.

Amongst problems with her ungrateful children and ex-husband, a middle-aged mother deals with a burgeoning mid-life crisis — until she realizes that she has become miraculously pregnant.

Asked by his therapist to tell a fable, a man recounts his unenchanting life as a lawyer married to a depressed, drug-abusing woman, with a disabled son he's struggling to raise. By filling his unremarkable story with sorceresses, magic, and true love, he attempts to romanticize a life he's desperate to escape.

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.

A man recalls his intimate friendship with his former English professor, who resolved to fuel his unsatisfied desire for playwriting during the time they were apart. In their reunion decades later, instead of the brilliant play he promised, the professor shows his former student a disturbing product of his mental instability.

A group of working class people run a dangerous path toward a promised Elysium, and those who survive are rewarded with nothing they can appreciate or comprehend.

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.