Alex could already see himself in a house in the country, raising chickens, dogs and a few children. At the center of it all, reflected in every facet of his life, was Marlene. She was his anchor, the very frame on which he had built his life.
So, when Marlene leaves him, Alex touches bottom. Perhaps he may even have preferred to remain that way, but, the day after the wreck, he returns to the surface, among people and things, lost in the swell of unknown waters.
There are of course a few beams of light in the mist; Camille, an evanescent nymph, Félix, the temperamental explosives expert, not to mention the crowd at the bar where he works. However, the people about him are as unpredictable as billiard balls able to bend the laws of physics.
Neither on the run nor on a quest, Alex is adrift, floating effortlessly southward to a country whose shores are bathed by warm oceans. It is there, stubbornly facing indomitable waves and armed with nothing but his pride, that he must learn to swim once again.