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 divorced 16 year old girl reflects on how the sexual trauma she experienced as a child perpetuates in her relationships with men throughout her life, forcing herself to grow up too early and leaving her starved for affection and love.

A father facing mental and physical debilitations has his sights set on capturing a drop of sunlight to bring joy to everyone in his small hometown. Despite his good deed, the town finds it necessary to deliberate: is this man an alcoholic, mentally ill, or a criminal?

After struggling to appeal to their state governor, a dysfunctional family anxiously awaits the public execution of a relative. As they wait at home new of the execution, tensions and strife erupt in a dispute over the relative's innocence.

A chance encounter with an old ex-girlfriend causes a man to remember his past relationship with her and with his cousin, who immigrated from Korea to America to live with his family as a small child. Though she died in a motorcycle accident years ago, when his ex-girlfriend asks how she's doing he lies, creating the life she never had in his imagination.

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.

After their only child dies during his gap year abroad, a woman reflects on her relationship with her husband and comes to understand that they deal with fear and grief in different ways.

A rambunctious teenager with an inquisitive mind causes much grief for all his New England family and neighbors when he visits them in the summer of 1914, on the eve of World War I.

Now estranged from her son, a music teacher recounts the event that first sowed distrust in their relationship—an event that involved an energetic dog, a strange-looking man, and a banana.

Four women–a retired dancer enacting an old dance, a grandmother preparing a birthday dinner for her family, her granddaughter participating in a genetics study, and a researcher quantifying the burden of old memories–all unite under the combined weight of their war-burdened pasts in the contemporary United States.