Twenty-year-old Marco is remarkably attuned to the suffering of people everywhere. He writes poetry but turns to drugs and drink to achieve āthe forgettingā, that unconscious state that is impenetrable to his existential angst and other fears. Heās fleeing pain but above all, heās fleeing from himself. When he goes to work for the cleanersā cooperative at Bambin GesĆ¹ Hospital, heās sure that this experience, the contact with sick children, will be the death of him.