When teacher Junpei Niki misses his last bus home after a day out collecting insects on a remote stretch of coast, he is invited by a local villager to take shelter in a young widow`s ramshackle hut. Ignoring the fact that her home is at the bottom of a sandpit accessible only by rope ladder, he accepts this hospitality without realising he is the victim of a cruel trick. Trapped, he is forced into an uneasy life with this woman, sharing with her the Sisyphean task of shovelling the sand that threatens to engulf them.