Stan and Charmaine are a married couple trying to stay afloat in the midst of an economic and social collapse. Job loss has forced them to live in their car, leaving them vulnerable to roving gangs. They desperately need to turn their situation around and fast. The Positron Project in the town of Consilience seems to be the answer to their prayers. No one is unemployed and everyone gets a comfortable, clean house to live in...for six months out of...

Benny Catspaw's perpetually sunny disposition is tested when he loses his job, his reputation, his fiancée, and his favorite chair. He's not paranoid. Someone is out to get him. He just doesn't know who or why. Then Benny receives an inheritance from an uncle he's never heard of: a giant crate and a video message. All will be well in time. How strange - though it's a blessing, his uncle promises. Stranger yet is what's inside the crate. He's a seven-foot-tall...

A long-unemployed workman is robbed of the bicycle he needs for his new job, and he and his son search Rome for it.

When Birdie discovers cash in an abandoned house she thinks it could be the answer to her and her mother's problems, but she wonders about the people who left that money behind and tries to figure what is best for her family and what is the right thing to do.

When 53-year-old Eliza Whitney loses both her beloved husband and her high-powered job in the same month, she's uncertain what the next chapter of her life will look like. Then her estranged father's widow contacts her and asks her to come to Sanibel Island to help settle his affairs. Eliza sees the trip to a place called Shellseeker Beach as a distraction from her loss, and maybe a way to get some closure on the difficult relationship she'd had with...