A writer struggles to craft a story and begins to lose his own sanity when an idea finally comes to him.

A son tells a series of stories, most of them about his father and stepfather. As the son describes a robbery that took place at his house in high school and his experiences with his father, a former Jehovah's Witness and current alcoholic, he begins to recall details from his childhood.

A teacher on the Lower East side meets a friendly man with a presence resembling a dead English poet.

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.

Searching for a muse to inspire a novel he is attempting to write, an author in San Francisco finds his passions ignited by something much more sinister.

A couple with a rocky marriage argues over fetching a newspaper, which becomes a catalyst for their impending divorce. When they unexpectedly reunite over a decade later, the former couple witnesses how their lives disparately transformed thanks to the fateful newspaper.

A Confederate officer begrudgingly fights in the American Civil War until his disastrous last battle helps seal the fate of the war for good. After the war, he constantly repents for his critical mistakes until, decades later, he comes to a shocking revelation about the fateful battle.

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 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.