After his father dies, a teenager struggles to find his place in the world until he stumbles across Niall. Their tumultuous friendship ends mysteriously when Niall disappears.

After their friend passes away, a man attends the funeral and falls deep into reverie while hearing a song's drum beats.

A woman finally forms a relationship with her half-sister, but becomes concerned for her well-being; the half-sister and her husband each tell the woman a different story.

When he and his fellow workers are left unemployed by the mechanization of the cotton-picking process, a man overcomes his instincts to flee, and stays with his friends as they set out to make a new life.

In the U.S. army, the friendship between two Mexican recruits is born of their shared love for music. Tragedy strikes the pair, leaving only one behind with no music left in him.

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.

On the day before they join the army, two Mexican-Americans see their communities, friends, and homes attacked by sailors and marines during the Los Angeles Zoot Suit Riots of 1943.

A woman in British Columbia reflects on her Japanese friend from childhood who was swept away from her during World War II-era Japanese internment.

A retired chemist forms a friendship with a young girl whose mother is suspected of poisoning her dead husband. Out of concern, the chemist starts a rift with the woman that has an unexpected romantic ending.

An old elevator operator in Cleveland develops a friendship with one of his co-workers, but after tragedy strikes, he struggles more with his advancing age and growing loneliness.