A woman lives in the upstairs unit of an apartment. In the downstairs unit is a couple: a Korean man named Vincent and a Greek woman named Helena. Vincent is the art director of "Punt," and Helena works in medical practice. The narrator, on the other hand, works at a printer where she sometimes prints a literary magazine called "Positive." According to her, Vincent is what one might consider a "New Man" as defined by "True" magazine: someone in touch with their emotions perhaps even more so than women, who just give and keep on giving. He also has mild epilepsy, which the narrator was told by her landlord to be mindful of.

Between the upstairs and downstairs units, there's a patio which the narrator shares with Vincent and Helena. One day, the narrator sits down on a lawn chair beside Vincent to suntan. They have a conversation in which Vincent talks on and on about his line of work, which the narrator somewhat indulges. All of a sudden, Vincent leans forward and simply stops. Recognizing it as a seizure, the narrator attempts to help him.

The narrator then pulls up her chair to sit beside Vincent, and she ends up falling asleep right by his side. In her dream, the narrator imagines Vincent touching her, and they talk about Vincent's complicated love for her and not Helena. When the narrator wakes up from Helena's shaking, she is instructed to run into their downstairs unit to get a plastic bag. While inside, the narrator is distracted by a picture of a whale. Helena runs in and grabs the plastic bag herself, all while the narrator watches her, through the window, waking up Vincent.

Still, the narrator has never once been published in "Positive."