The first story is "Man in a White Overcoat". It follows a mute and nameless beggar, described as being a failure at everything, including begging. He picks up a woman's overcoat in white at a shop and proceeds to wander the city, doing odd jobs, including being staged as a live mannequin in another clothing store. He eventually makes it to the beach, where he is declared a pervert and harassed, and is told to leave the beach. He eventually walks straight into the water and disappears. The second story is "The Forgotten", which details a woman discovering the corpse of her old boyfriend in her attic, while she went up to look for books to sell. She notices a gun in the corpse's left hand, and wonders if he killed himself, before reminiscing about their relationship and past. She recalls that he went up to the attic one day after an argument but never returned, but does not remember hearing a gunshot. At the end, her husband calls out to her and she leaves the attic. The third is the title story, "Waiting for the Fear". An anxious man receives a letter written in an unknown language. He contacts a friend at a university and discovers it is a threat warning him not to leave his house under any circumstances from a secret society. He begins to isolate himself, staying inside, although he is not certain if it is real. He becomes more paranoid and solitary over time, attempting to learn languages (such as Latin), despite his struggles with language in general. He does household chores, makes dishes such as
Noah's pudding, starts ordering groceries through a courier service, and eventually enrolls in remote courses at a university. He watches his neighbor's house get demolished after it was bought to be replaced by an apartment complex, and wins a large cash prize from his bank in a contest. He eventually discovers that the sect is a South American group known as Ubor-Metenga. Later, as he is dousing his house in kerosene and preparing to burn it down, he discovers the leaders of the sect were arrested; while reading a piece of newspaper he was about to use as kindling. He abandons his plans, moves into a hotel, starts visiting acquaintances, and resolves to get married. When he returns home his house has been destroyed in a landslide from the incomplete construction of his neighbor's demolished house. Although he is then engaged, he gets enraged seeing ordinary couples when he is out at a restaurant with his fiancée and starts writing threatening letters in the Ubor-Metenga style. Later, regretful but unafraid, he turns himself into the police for writing these letters, transcribing one identical to the one he received. The next two stories are
written as letters. One is "A Letter", subtitled "Unsent", a stream-of-consciousness letter written by a man to a coworker whom he holds in high esteem. The author frequently struggles with language and dictates the issues he has writing the letter. He details his relationship issues, his dog's habits, and a mysterious man he refers to as "The Third Thing". The author is clearly nervous about the process of the letter (but notes a refusal to edit it), but does not have the courage to send it. The next, "Not Yes Not No", is portrayed as a letter written in to a newspaper advice column. The columnist chooses to publish the letter mostly unedited, but "could not resist" adding commentary in parentheticals. The letter details its author's love for a local girl, primarily through hand-delivered love letters, and her lack of response, which he describes as "NOT YES NOT NO", capitalized by the columnist. The author is evidently obsessed with the girl, who does not explicitly accept or reject him. By the end it is revealed that the author is in prison, claiming to have been blackmailed and threatened into robbing a friend's house. The sixth story, "The Wooden Horse", follows Tuğrul Tuzcuoğlu of the Tuzcu family, the only son of a deceased member of parliament, Bekir Bey. Their village is said to be the site of
Troy from ancient Greek myth. Tuğrul attempts to stop a replica of the
Trojan Horse from being built as a
tourist trap. A fundraising effort is made among the locals for its construction, and Tuğrul initially attempts to petition the local council with a letter to stop its construction. He later works with the planning committee, and when he learns that the horse is set to be made out of concrete, not wood, he suggests that it at least be made hollow, to preserve that aspect of history of the Trojan Horse. A later second petition is also unsuccessful, and a police escort is placed on the scene of the Trojan Horse on the day of its official opening, while Tuğrul is missing from the ceremony. As a commencement speech begins, the Trojan Horse opens and Tuğrul emerges in classical armor with a gun, aimed at the leads of the project. The narrator of "Letter to my Father", the seventh story, is a published author writing to his two-years-deceased father. He discusses their relationship and the problems it has caused for him, and the differences in their points of view. At the end he wonders if he will end up being like him, including in death. The final story, "Railway Storytellers", subtitled "A Dream", follows three people who sell stories to passing tourists at a remote train station. Narrated by a nameless man, they compete with vendors of other goods primarily for their sales. As their conditions and homelessness by the train station worsen, the narrator realizes he is falling in love with the female storyteller of the group. Although he initially sees success in love, his mental facilities decline, seemingly due to hunger as business declines. Eventually his lover disappears on one of the trains, the third storyteller in the group had long since died, and the train station no longer sees business due to other routes having opened. It ends with a question to the reader: "Where are you?" == Publication history ==