These captivating stories, by turn tragic and humorous, are about the lives of ordinary people in Tehran and in a remote, poverty-stricken village. A worn-out peasant, whose old mother is dying, snatches the only shabby ball from a small group of boys who play noisily in a dusty path outside his hovel, a henpecked man, bullied non-stop by his wife, falls in love with an attractive neighbour and disappears with her into the jungle of Tehran, a young woman, whose mother was murdered by her father when a small girl, finds happiness in a family, a young man retreats to his makeshift hut in the corner of a trash dump to read a book he has found somewhere, an old village headman searches endlessly to find out about his soldier son during Iran-Iraq war.