The book is about a retired sergeant of the US military, who, starting from his service, begins to suffer from health problems, but most of all the hero is bothered by auditory hallucinations. Afterwards, he is admitted to inpatient treatment, where, without completing it, after a short amount of time, he is discharged and treated on an outpatient basis. He is hired as a forester, where he works and receives further treatment, but as the disease progresses, the hero only gets worse every day, and he begins to abuse drugs and alcohol. His main symptom - auditory hallucinations are tormented more and more often and the hero is left in no doubt that these are not hallucinations, but a part of his new life to which he needs to get used. The hero tries to test his beliefs in all sorts of ways, as a result of which we read until the end, where new questions appear.