When a noted professor receives a new treatment for his heart ailment, his outlook on life changes. Despite doctor's orders, he is determined to live out his final days on his own terms and fulfill his fantasies. He saves the life of a young woman who tries to kill herself after his recovery from heart surgery in this symbolic story of a man trying to determine his own fate in his last days alive.

The shoemaker, Lájošek Cína, is a naive good-for-nothing with his heart on his sleeve, who, as the day grows long, never leaves his shop, where he also sleeps, and his only company is a small stray kitten. One day he is approached by a peculiar truck driver, Martin, who immediately adopts Lájošek as his new driver and becomes his life guide with a plan to rebuild his peaceful life from the ground up. In the Žižkov colony at Krejcárk he meets the charming Magda, with whom Lájošek falls in love and begins to live with her and her four children. Soon after, they are expecting their own and their life would seem ideal, but every happiness comes at a price...