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Beginning with the title story, Gapinski delights in puzzling phenomena that alter the lives of their characters in ways both monumental and mundane. The narrator in that story has “a gold membership for the Museum of Future Mistakes,” which offers insight into any wrong decisions he’ll make, allowing him to live his life in a frictionless manner. When he spots a statue of his girlfriend, Devin, he begins to panic. The foreboding monument leaves him doubting the validity of both his relationship and the museum itself, creating a chicken-egg paradox in which he’s left to decipher whether the mistake is the relationship itself or what will happen when it ends. “Saw Act” features a magician, Magesto, and their assistant, Malvina, who perform a trick with a saw so unbelievable it launches them to great levels of fame. When Magesto—who receives almost all the credit for the trick despite it being Malvina’s routine—attempts to learn how it’s done, their career begins to fall apart. Greed leads many of these characters down impossible-to-navigate paths, like the couple in “Fruit Rot.” An unnamed narrator and their partner, Lacey, discover that a tree in their house cures all diseases. They exploit the inexplicable phenomenon and receive great wealth as a result, moving from near-poverty to building an entire compound in their neighborhood. Unexpected side effects of the cure are utilized for nefarious purposes, leaving Lacey and the narrator to reckon with the weapon they’ve unleashed. Each of these stories begins with an entirely outside-the-box premise. The characters are faced with moral quandaries meant to prod their ethics. More often than not, they fail to live up to the moment.
