On a scant island, three women live together in a house. A strange slumber has enfolded the place and also the lives of the three women. At first glance they live together in content love and tenderness. But the closer one looks, the more the seemingly tranquil surface is rippled by unfulfilled desires. A fisherman and his family are the only further occupants. They seem to be frozen in time with a terrible, yet utterly ungraspable secret that lies just beneath the surface. It has been years since the fisherman last went out onto the sea. The fisherman’s wife spends her days cutting and drying flowers, hoping and wishing that work will somehow bring back her life lost. Antoine collects bottles the tide has washed onto the shore or records the day’s sound with his tape recorder. Francois passes his time toying with bugs and other small creatures. For all of them the only possible escape seems to be one that leads inward, where everybody has to come to terms with themselves. Somehow the women and the fisherman’s family are inevitably drawn to one another and the clash, when it does come in the end, causes first death and then: birth.