Alex is The New Yorkist, a troubled artist paralyzed by the disparity between the possibilities he imagines for himself and the reality he instead inhabits. One morning, he resolves to undertake an enterprise of monumental importance, for which he will be enshrined in the annals of history. This abstract notion quickly evolves into grandiose delusion as Alex constructs an elaborate fantasy involving The Gulag Archipelago, an infestation of ants, and a doomed plan to invade Kyrgyzstan.