A writer who struggles to find words for her feelings takes on the role of a painter. When she comes to the Middle Eastern city ‘K’, she is still searching for the perfect painting; an abstract image inspired by the work of Mark Rothko. However, the scenes she sees are all too real, and her experience of the effects of war serve to threaten her relationships with the people she meets.

Confronted with the suffering of K’s inhabitants, she forces herself to reflect on the complexity of portraying the pain of war through the arts.