A boy, his father, and his dog Alan set out involuntarily on a journey, after their hometown is seized by a strange illness of greed and voracity. They yearn to find a place where they could settle in calm and peace. But their goal turns out to be extremely difficult to achieve. At one moment, the father gets lost in mayhem, and the boy runs away with Alan only. When they travel through villages, cities, and countries, they encounter helpfulness and friendship, but also refusal. Residents of the cities embody features that result in prejudices, in refusal of anything alien or outlandish, and provide comfortable justification for their insensibility to the fate of another person.