Through the lives of four artists author shows the world of culture run into the ground - cheap commercialism replacing what once used to be 'excursion back to the source.' Art understood as re-linking the present human predicament to its origin known to us only as intuitions, dreams and forebodings - well, art then, this type of spiritual endeavor now belonging for good to the past, leaving the people like our four in here, stranded, with the deep feeling of being cheated by the destiny, only to be completely abandoned in the end, all of which means not only senseless outcome of individual human life, but also the destruction of the world in general as we still know it today. Could that be a deliberate, organized effort? Or just greed and stupidity? Is there an escaping from that? Or are we just rats in a maze? Tin soldiers played with by spoiled brat who keeps getting away with it?