Aunt Molly, "Roadblock"
Fifty-three year old Aunt Molly and her thirty-five year old nephew have been living together for ten years after everyone else in the their family died in four unrelated air crashes all within just a few months of each. Having flat out told him that she hates him, Aunt Molly has moved on from gruesome graffiti images on the walls to burning his possessions like ballpoint pens and a G.I. Joe collection.
Person Wearing Weevil Costume, "Strangers on Vacation: Snapshots"
All of the vacation photos of a family feature a strange recurrence of a person of indeterminate gender wearing a weevil costume. Same person, same costume in vacation photos ranging from Disney World to Mt. Rushmore. The final line partially explains the mystery.
The Guitarist, "The Lead Singer is Distracting Me"
The guitarist in a band confesses that he is tired of the lead singer coming over to him during the musical break and dancing right in front of him as if expecting him to join in. Then he fantasizes that the band shared the same relationship with the leader singer on stage as off-stage, where they are forbidden even to look at him.
The Onryo, "The Spooky Japanese Girl is There for You"
She is referred to in the title as well as the body of the story as “the spooky Japanese girl.” This is a type of ghost that traces back in various in Asian cultures and is known as on Onryo. A guy haunted by the specter of this modern-day horror film icon until he finds out that even they can get tired of haunting a person.
Man Speaking in Thick Eastern European Accent
“Customer Service at the Karaoke Don Quixote” is told in first-person narration in a style that mimics the speaking patterns of an Eastern European person who has learned English as a second language. He doesn’t really speak with an accent, but literati who comprise the customer base of the Karaoke Don Quixote enjoy it and it seems to fuel their fantasy. The collection’s final story—the title story—is a third person narrative featuring a protagonist who “narrate adventures in heavy Russian accent.” It is suggested that he is the character from the earlier story.
