The death of his newborn brother will cause a child from the poor neighborhoods of Santiago to walk around the city with the lost cardboard wings that the dead baby lost after the wake, trying to return them to him with the illusion that his little brother can fly to heaven.

Set in Santiago de Chile in the 50's and divided into three stories. The first story is about a young woman who has just discovered that she's pregnant. The father refuses to cooperate. The second story is set in Arica, and concerns smuggling in northern Chile. The third and final story, "Ojos de gato", concerns a cashier that is bewitched by a mysterious "Lady in Black".

This stark Chilean melodrama concerns itself with the plight of slum dwellers living outside Santiago. For many years they have, with great difficulty, been faithfully paying small sums to a real estate man. This man has said that by doing so they can obtain title to the miniscule plots of land their houses stand on. In fact, he has been swindling them and does not even own the land he has been "selling." One of the aggrieved slum dwellers confronts him about this while he is visiting the slum, and the real estate agent shoots him before everyone's eyes. The question confronting these witnesses is whether testifying against this monster will make their lives even more precarious.