After her husband disappears in the Laotian Civil War, a young mother decides to raise her daughter in Laos against the wishes of her America-bound family.

A divorced mother watches her son unravel with shame while on a visit home from school as he reveals that an older, married woman has expressed sexual interest in him. The mother wavers between whether to intervene, or to sit back and let him handle the consequences of his actions.

Following a messy breakup, an MIT graduate and a PhD student at Indiana University separately talk about the problems in their former relationship in two spliced-together conversations, exploring conflicts surrounding language, intimacy, commitment, and intellectualism.

Debilitating, apparently incurable migraines confine a graduate student to the hospital. When one of her roommates, a strange woman with multiple personality disorder, takes an interest in her, the student's world begins to collapse.

A cheating husband who was dragged to marriage counseling sleeps with the flirty counselor. It backfires when it turns out she is not a marriage counselor at all, but a dangerous woman with a gun.

A scientist travels across North America in search of a rare beetle, collecting stories along the way.

A retired couple live a comfortable life in the suburbs of Maryland, but they cannot escape thoughts of death and mourning, even as the husband and wife attend an extravagant toga-themed house warming party in their neighborhood.