He has arrived in Africa with a rather aimless goal of "doing good" - he is passionate and committed but to what exactly he is not sure. Through his work in the local hospital Adrian meets and becomes friends with a local surgeon, Kai Mansaray - another man deeply committed to his work but also using it as a way to escape from personal memories and pain. One of Adrian's patients is an elderly man, Elias Cole, dying of an incurable lung disease and wanting to talk to an empathic stranger about his past life and decisions he has made that still play on his conscience.