Michael, a retired bridge engineer, has lived away from Ireland for most of his life and now resides alone in Bilbao after the death of his girlfriend, Catherine. Each day he listens to two versions of the same piece of music before walking the same route to visit Richard Serra's enormous permanent installation, The Matter of Time, in the Guggenheim Museum. Over the course of an hour before he leaves his apartment, Michael reflects on past projects, the landscapes of his adolescence, and his relationship with Catherine, which acts as the marker by which he judges the passing of time.