There is no story line to this film. It is not so much an etching as a folder of those "while you wait" portraits painted by artists down on their luck (and low on talent in some cases) in the Madrid streets c.1950. The "capital of the Empire" was then more then ever the breakwater of Spain. A grey breakwater with "the grey cops", still with rationing, tender and cruel, poor even in its joy, convalescent (with a slight fever at dusk) but also picaresque, festive and surrealist. All in all a merry-go-round of survivors and we are their heirs whether we like it or not.