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.

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 rejected author ponders his writing abilities and lonely existence as he experiences his monotonous daily life. After one of his stories is rejected yet again, he receives a mysterious letter regarding the unpublished story that offers new hope.

When a perpetually unlucky Nigerian American law school dropout meets her parents’ dream son-in-law, she has to pick between finally meeting her parents’ expectations for her and retaining control over her own life, as tempestuous and miserable as it is.

On the Great Plains, an aging farmer and his wife struggle to sell their produce amid an increase in frozen food manufacturing. The farmer must figure out how to avoid the fate of his neighbors, who were pushed out of business and into welfare dependence.

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.

An ordinary man gets an inch and a half of mention in the newspaper after stumbling into a low stakes rescue — and the small bit of fame sends him spiraling down a dark, egotistical path.

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.

A man tells his life story leading up to his suicide, attempting to explain the seemingly-inescapable mental paradoxes he found himself facing in his quest to be an authentic person, which reinforced, time after time, his belief that he was a fraud.

A poor, ever-hopeful couple that imagines itself on the brink of a windfall suffers setback after setback, until the husband has a revelation about what in life holds real value.