Neto (Óscar Javier Almengor), a young boy with a lone dream to fly in a hot-air balloon, navigates life in 1950s Guatemala, a tumultuous era marked by the U.S. government's overthrow of the country's leftist president. As he attends his Uncle Ernesto's funeral, Neto meets up with an avuncular ghost (Herbert Meneses), who recalls through a series of conversational flashbacks how the military presence affected his life.