Awaking in a hospital bed, Arthur, a dissolute drunk erroneously registered as Ayeme, panics and escapes through a fireplace. He emerges into a peaceful moonlit garden, dressed in unfamiliar clothing and burdened with a heavy rucksack. Across the garden, he sees a woman in black and a man in top hat and tails. They seem to be preparing for a funeral, but feeling somehow connected to her, Ayeme follows their procession to a church in the middle of a wood. From there, his odyssey begins, tinged with elusive love, in a bizarre world full of strange characters and a series of equally strange misadventures.