1942, in the middle of Northeastern Brazil, two very different men meet along the road: Johan, an aspirin salesman avoiding the German draft, and Ranulpho, a rural Brazilian seeking escape from the drought.
The boy Francisco spent his days accompanying his father at work, or rather, on the roads. The man is a driver of the imposing Big Jet, a pickup truck used to clean the city's cesspools without basic sanitation. But the boy is more interested in the ideas of his uncle, a libertarian and anarchist artist. As he discovers his first love, Chico realizes the vocation to become a poet.
Paralysed by fear of the future, a middle aged French bureaucrat escapes to Brazil where a destructive affair with a boy forces her to learn to live in the present.
