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 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.

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.

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 man thinks about his relationship with his parents (especially his mother) as he watches them grow old. He then realizes that he is now old too.

A progressive and bitter father going through a mid-life crisis goes on holiday to a water park with his wife and excitable son. He casually confronts racist and irritable guests while trying to figure out how to be a good dad.

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.

In this metafiction, the many lives of an unnamed man are scrutinized as he passes through millennia.

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.

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.