June 14, 1935. And yet, much later. It's already autumn and it's still hot - the heat never goes away. In a remote place in Paraguay, an elderly peasant couple Candida and Ramon are waiting for their son who left to fight the Chaco War. They are also waiting for the rain to come, it keeps announcing its arrival but it doesn't come; and for the wind that never comes either; and for the heat to go away but it never does in spite of the season; and for the dog to stop barking but it will never stop; and all in all, they are waiting for better times to come. The instant of the eternal waiting is found between the "before" and the "after" of time. The couple faces these waiting moments with different attitudes: Ramon, a farmer, waits with optimism; Candida, a mother and a washerwoman, believes her son is already dead, therefore it makes no sense to keep waiting. These roles go back and forth while the couple sit, and after the death and in between, they wait eternally for the passing of time.