In 1989, a breakthrough in "advanced parasitic research" on Cuttyhunk Island gave scientists a jump in human evolution. Initial tests proved promising, as subjects experienced heightened physical and mental strength and awareness. But - something in the experiment went horribly wrong, and the island mysteriously lost three quarters of its population.

When a shy young man arrives on her doorstep, Alice Hartley grabs the chance to escape from her loveless marriage. She and Michael open a Growth Centre with a difference - offering sex, drugs and personalised water births.

39-year-old Nagasato Daisuke is a bachelor who works for a stationery manufacturer. Although he is attuned to trends and interacts with other people flawlessly, he hates being hurt by love. Daisuke is not disatissified with living alone. On the day he moves to his new apartment, he meets his neighbour Hanako for the first time due to an unpleasant situation. 32-year-old Kumagai Hanako is a divorced office lady. She has the clear intention not to remarry and is already preparing for old age. For some reason, Daisuke and Hanako keep quarreling right from the time they meet. But the two of them actually have many similarities. One day, Daisuke’s father Yozo suddenly visits for the first time in five years. He had secretly remarried in this time and has a step-son in tow. Meanwhile Hanako’s mother Ritsuko starts living separately from her husband and comes to live with her beloved daughter without consulting her. Daisuke and Hanako’s lives as swinging singles get disrupted because of parents who have no hesitation about enjoying their own lives.

A bomb technician faces his most hazardous situation yet: Take Your Daughter To Work Day.

Eli, a 15-year-old teenager, gets ready in the school restroom to go on her first date with someone she has never seen before. She goes on the date, waits for hours, and no one shows up. She walks to home and buys herself some ice cream.

Eli, a 15-year-old teenager, gets ready in the school restroom to go on her first date with someone she has never seen before. She goes on the date, waits for hours, and no one shows up. She walks to home and buys herself some ice cream.

Ian Folivor, a depressed and reclusive 30-something, finds himself taking advice from a growth in his bathroom after a failed suicide attempt. The Mold, a smooth talking fungus who was born of the filth collecting in a corner of Ian's neglected bathroom, works to win Ian's trust by helping him clean himself up and remodel his lifestyle. With The Mold's help, Ian attracts the attention of a neighbor he's been ogling through his peephole, Leah, and he manages to find a slice of happiness despite his unnatural circumstances. But Ian starts to receive strange messages from his old and broken down TV set that make him realize that The Mold may not be as helpful as it seems to be, and strange characters combined with stranger events cast Ian's life in the shadow of an epic battle between good and evil that Ian is only partially aware of.

The hearing community has, through the course of history, treated the Deaf community as a particularly undesirable species of weed. Hearing aids, cochlear implants, speech education, the marginalization of signed languages, sterilization programs, and now even the use of CRISPR gene splicing technology, are all attempts to remove or correct the Deaf weeds in humanity’s garden. Crab theory is a major and ongoing discussion in the Deaf community due to the intensity of the internalized oppression felt by group insiders who have often been intentionally isolated from their peers and language models. This poem uses the metaphor of unwanted weeds as a way to process that history and reframe the community as a stubbornly resilient population, capable of growth and beauty.

Emma feels responsible for the accident that caused her mother's death.