On a road trip from Ann Arbor to Buffalo, a young man stops in Cleveland and meets a whole host of characters who, like the pseudonyms they've chosen, aren't quite what they seem.

A nameless person tells a story of when they had an intimate conversation over dinner with a former schoolmate whom they idealized.

An author discusses with his friend the best way to write about a poor aunt. Their words take on a new power when he manifests a literal poor aunt on his back and draws in spectators.

A town has frequent visits from phantom apparitions, and the townspeople have many explanations for the ghosts, ranging from disbelief to hallucination to the idea that humans and phantoms were once a single race.

In intense discussion a group leader ponders aloud, asking why hermits hide and what defines outcasts, among other cerebral queries. A group of friends discusses the oddities they have seen and perceived in their lives leather-clad hermits and criminal astronauts among them. They debate the purpose of hermitage, the classification of outcasts, and the purpose of their own reflections.

A middle aged man becomes the talk of the town when he shares a crazy story regarding his missing friend and creatures that live beneath a water pump house.

On a cold night in Indianapolis, a chance meeting brings two lonely divorcees together. For the night, they pretend to be a happy couple, hoping to work through the problems of their past relationships, grasping for some kind of genuine human connection.

After spending his adult life under the shadow of his father, a former NSA whistleblower, a man comes to terms with his complicated family history and what he wants for his own future.

In a society where everyone is masked and takes on a new personality every day, an underground network seeks to return to their original identities.

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.