A former doctor is called out of his alcoholism and cynicism to help others—first when his nephew is shot, then when a tornado devastates the area.

A man moving to San Francisco finds himself dragged into conversation with his neighbor on the plane, a woman who is fleeing New Jersey after her affair with her sister's husband.

A lonely young drummer with a talent for old fashioned jazz music joins a band of elderly men and ends up having a surprisingly good time with them.

A missionary preaches to a village in Mexico but faces utter alienation.

A young lute player is aided by a harmonizing spider who resides in her lute, unbeknownst to her. Though the spider becomes attached to the lute player, she continues to feel loneliness and longing for her home among other spiders in the forest of her birth.

After a man finds out his wife is having an affair from a butt dial, he invites strangers walking on the street into his apartment to chat and ease his turmoil.

A young South African man traveling through Africa befriends a group of people and stays with them, following them north to Kenya. He becomes romantically attached to one of the young Swiss men, despite their language barrier, and they begin a hot-and-cold relationship.

A motherless young girl sent to boarding school by her single father is rattled by two women who begin to appear in her life in strange ways.

A young Chinese-American girl deals with her delusional and manipulative grandmother when her grandmother visits from China.