A stout middle-aged physician whose marriage has come apart establishes a practice in a small town. Gradually he's drawn into the lives of his patients—a childless couple, a pregnant girl with a stern mother, the son of a duck farmer—and each relationship reveals a bit more about him and the idyllic but insular community.

Postwoman Mrs Skorepa, her husband the ambulance driver Mr Skorepa and their eleven-year-old twins Petr and Pavel live in Prague in Malá Strana (Lesser Town), one of the Prague's historical and oldest quarters. The boys are crazy about cars and everything linked to them. They don't share their father's love of classical music. On the other hand, they are crazy about the newly announced scrap yard competition for paper collection. The lottery tickets awarded for every ten kilograms of old paper collected could win them a go-kart.