In a hospital room in Edinburgh Roy Strang lies in a coma - which doesn't save him from reliving the sordid developments that brought him to this state. He seems at times to be engaged in a strange quest in a surrealistic Africa to eradicate the evil predator-scavenger bird the marabou stork before it drives away the peace-loving flamingos from Lake Torto. But Roy's hallucinatory adventures keep being interrupted by troubling memories of his bizarre family, the housing project in which he grew up, a disastrous emigration to South Africa and his youthful life of casual brutality as a club-hopping soccer thug. Meanwhile his parents and his nurse bombard his inert form with inane conversation, even more inane pop music, and intimate massage...