The narrator studies the slimy humanoid Numery Hitomodoki, a creature that learns human memories and emotions, and becomes obsessed with raising it in order to recover his dead wife. Grief and fixation lead toward ruin with a damp sense of bodily unease.

The wish to recover a beloved life ends up nurturing something monstrous.

This collection centers on the title story, about a man overcome by the urge to enter every kind of hole, from hoses to food and hand straps. Its strange ideas and humor dislocate the bodily feel of everyday life.

The bizarre satisfaction of entering holes slips into a turning point in life.