A European couple's vacation abruptly ends when they're kidnapped in Mexico. A working-class Mexican family is compelled to imprison them, leading to an unexpected cultural clash.

After the closure of their shipyard in Northern Spain, a few former workers: Santa, José, Lino, Amador, Sergei and Reina keep in touch. They meet mainly at a bar owned by their former colleague Rico. Santa is the most superficially confident and unofficial leader of the group. A court case hangs over him relating to a shipyard lamp he smashed during a protest against the closure. José is bitter that his wife, Ana, is employed when he is not.

Lucio Bordenave carries on the Grey lifestyle of an unemployed worker, dedicated to the trade of watchmaking, until in a somewhat mysterious way, his wife is admitted to a Frenopatic Institute. From this point on, the story enters a territory without parameters where reality is confused with the imaginary, sleep with wakefulness, and insanity with lucidity.

Father KIM and Hyung-woo, a sixth-grader, travel together to the quiet village of Boriwool. Kim is going there to start his priesthood as pastor of Boriwool Church, Hyung-woo to see his dad Woon-ahm, who left his family six years ago to become a Buddhist monk. Hyung-woo feels awkward with his dad and becomes bored with living in the country. Father Kim also finds some of his flock quite antagonistic to him.Meanwhile, the village kids coached by Woon-ahm play the church orphans in a soccer match. After the orphans are beaten soundly, Father Kim begins coaching them...

Father KIM and Hyung-woo, a sixth-grader, travel together to the quiet village of Boriwool. Kim is going there to start his priesthood as pastor of Boriwool Church, Hyung-woo to see his dad Woon-ahm, who left his family six years ago to become a Buddhist monk. Hyung-woo feels awkward with his dad and becomes bored with living in the country. Father Kim also finds some of his flock quite antagonistic to him. Meanwhile, the village kids coached by Woon-ahm play the church orphans in a soccer match. After the orphans are beaten soundly, Father Kim begins coaching them...

Several students spend their last days of high school in a cheerful and musical atmosphere. Petrica and 'Sunny Smile', who has become a fairy tale princess in the meantime, find their way back to each other, from the real world to the dream one and the other way around, in order to meet their love halfway between the two realms.

A hotel porter is left a fortune but after living it up for a while he returns to his old place of work which is in financial difficulties.

Brian Jessel, a civil servant in the Cabinet Office, is asked to investigate the mysterious death of the civil servant Stephen Summerchild twenty years earlier. Summerchild was working on a Cabinet project, under the Oxford philosophy don Elizabeth Serafin, to find the "quality of life" in Britain. Jessel finds a box of audio tapes from the project containing all the discussions up to the time Summerchild fell off the Admiralty Building.