In 9177, give or take a thousand years (there's no point in being finicky about these details) the whole world, and, according to some authors, the universe too, has been reduced to a single Representative Building and squalid suburbs inhabited by all of the out-of-work and hungry in the cosmos. One of the down and outs, José María, decides that by facing up to the difficulties and selling his delicious homemade lemonade in the Representative Building, another world is possible.