Geryon's older brother sexually abuses him in their shared bedroom, using a marble as a bribe.

Geryon begins his autobiography after the abuse, deciding to record only his own inside thoughts and feelings.

Geryon meets Herakles at the Bus Depot at age fourteen, and Herakles puts Geryon's cold hands inside his shirt.

Geryon and Herakles begin a sexual relationship, though Geryon always quietly has a question about it.

Geryon and Herakles travel together to Hades, Herakles' family hometown on the island.

Herakles breaks up with Geryon the morning before the volcano trip, telling him they will always be friends.

Geryon takes a job shelving government documents in the cold basement of a local library.

At twenty-two, Geryon packs his things alone and travels by plane to Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Geryon bumps into Herakles by chance in a Buenos Aires bookshop after years apart.

Herakles introduces Geryon to his boyfriend Ancash at Café Mitwelt and explains their volcano-recording documentary project.

Herakles invites Geryon to join him and Ancash on their upcoming trip to Peru.

Ancash discovers Geryon's wings when he insists on wrapping Geryon in a wool blanket for warmth.

Ancash tells Geryon the legend of the Yazcol Yazcamac, beings thrown into a volcano who emerge immortal and winged.

Geryon and Herakles have sex in the Huaraz hotel; Geryon cries and Herakles calls it just like the old days.

Before dawn, Geryon borrows Ancash's tape recorder and flies over the active volcano Icchantikas to record it.

The main plot follows Geryon from his childhood sexual abuse at the hands of his older brother through his formative relationship with Herakles, an older boy who eventually breaks his heart. After a period of numbness working in a library, Geryon travels alone to Buenos Aires, where he unexpectedly encounters Herakles and his new boyfriend Ancash, who are recording volcanic sounds across South America. Joining their trip to Peru, Geryon grapples with lingering feelings for Herakles while forming a tentative connection with Ancash. Ancash's discovery of Geryon's hidden wings becomes a pivotal moment, linking Geryon to an ancient legend about winged beings who survive the volcano and emerge immortal. The story culminates in Geryon literally using his wings, flying over the active volcano Icchantikas in an act of self-assertion and gift-giving that closes his long arc of concealment.

Geryon's complete journey from abuse to self-discovery.

Geryon starts kindergarten and creeps along the building's outer wall each day instead of entering through the Main Door.

Geryon's grandmother's injury forces him to share his brother's bunk bed, where he hears his brother masturbating at night.

On Tuesday evenings when his father and brother leave for hockey, Geryon eats alone with his mother on supper trays.

Geryon writes Total Facts Known About Geryon in a Japanese notebook, including that Herakles will one day kill him.

At Parent-Teacher Day, Geryon takes his story from the teacher's hands and adds a new happy ending about red breezes.

Geryon's mother neatens his little red wings and pushes him out the door to school.

Geryon and Herakles spray-paint the high school walls with graffiti the night before leaving for Hades.

Herakles' grandmother reveals that Lava Man survived the eruption and later appeared as a sideshow act in the Barnum Circus.

Geryon rides the seven-hour bus home from Hades alone, crying for most of the journey.

Herakles calls Geryon at the library to casually announce he has been painting in Hades with a boxer named Hart.

Geryon sits at Café Mitwelt writing postcards to family members, tailoring each one with a unique closing line.

Geryon attends the yellowbeard philosophy professor's lecture on emotionlessness at the University of Buenos Aires.

Inside Harrods department store, Herakles cuts the reins of a tiger carousel figure and steals it as a birthday gift.

Ancash punches Geryon twice in the hotel garden, then sits beside him and wipes the blood from his face.

At the bakery in Jucu, flour powders the air and settles on three men as they watch fire through holes in Icchantikas.

These events trace the formative moments surrounding Geryon's main story, beginning with his fearful first days at kindergarten and the Tuesday evenings he treasures alone with his mother. Geryon's early autobiographical writing reveals his philosophical bent and his need to record his inner life, including a moment at school where he rewrites his own story to give it a happy ending. The backdrop of Herakles' hometown and the aftermath of their breakup—Geryon's solitary bus ride home—show the depth of his heartbreak before his recovery begins. In Buenos Aires, Geryon moves through the city attending a philosophy lecture and writing tailored postcards that reveal how he thinks about each person in his life. The story closes at the bakery in Jucu, where Geryon stands between the two men who have most shaped him, flour settling on them all as they watch the volcanic fire through holes in the wall.

The quieter scenes that shape Geryon's inner world.

Geryon's brother places an empty fruit bowl over Geryon's head and threatens to break his neck with one surprise twist.

When asked his favorite weapon by the babysitter, Geryon says a cage, which his brother dismisses as doing nothing.

Geryon views Herakles' grandmother's photograph Red Patience for the first time and is deeply, inexplicably disturbed by it.

Geryon gives Herakles oral sex and afterward feels clear and powerful rather than like a wounded angel.

Herakles tells Geryon that all of his graffiti designs are about captivity, which depresses Herakles.

Geryon and Herakles argue about photography on the way home from the video store; Herakles says starlight is memories.

Geryon wakes alone in the night in a panic, picturing Herakles far away laughing and getting into a car.

Geryon takes a self-portrait in his Buenos Aires hotel room, lying naked in fetal position with his wings spread across the bed.

Geryon wanders Buenos Aires alone at night and stumbles into the last authentic tango bar in the city.

A tango-bar memory overtakes Geryon: he sees his reflection in a steel kitchen kettle as a small red person in a big jacket.

Geryon mishears the tango singer's final words as who can a monster blame for being red?

Geryon listens to Ancash's recording of Mount Pinatubo erupting through headphones; he and Herakles lock eyes at the word wings.

On the plane to Peru, Herakles slides his hand under a shared blanket and touches Geryon while Ancash sleeps.

Soldiers stop the car on the mountain road to Huaraz; Ancash's mother sweeps Geryon's camera out of sight between his legs.

Ancash tells Geryon the only thing he wants is to see Geryon use his wings, before Herakles interrupts them.

These events mark the key psychological turning points that transform Geryon across the novel, beginning with his brother's childhood bullying and the moment Geryon names a cage as his favorite weapon, revealing his need for containment over violence. The early chapters in Hades bring first intimacy and then growing unease, as Herakles identifies Geryon's graffiti as obsessively themed around captivity, and the two argue over whether looking at stars means seeing memories. After the breakup, a late-night panic attack and a carefully staged self-portrait in Buenos Aires mark Geryon's attempts to see himself clearly and honestly. The tango bar sequence becomes a crucible of memory and misheard language, culminating in Geryon transforming a mundane dismissal into a question about his own monstrousness. In Peru, a chain of charged moments—the airplane, the soldiers on the mountain road, Ancash's final private request—push Geryon toward the act of using his wings as an open declaration of selfhood.