Set against the backdrop of a global deep-freeze set to end all life on Earth, a nameless narrator wages war against the imperious Warden for the affections of a glass girl. The glass girl, with her silvery hair, is always slightly out of reach, remaining, either physically or emotionally, right outside the grasp of the narrator. As the world degenerates into chaos, the narrator obsessively pursues her.

"I felt a fearful sense of pressure and urgency, there was no time to lose, I was wasting time; it was a race between me and the ice. Her albino hair illuminated my dreams, shining brighter than moonlight. I saw the dead moon dance over the icebergs, as it would at the end of our world, while she watched from the tent of her glittering hair."

The narrative is garbled and surreal, recursive, seemingly unrelated events flow into one another with little indication that the scene has been changed. Fantasies become indistinguishable from reality, the only constant is the oppressive presence of the Warden and the narrator's obsessive desire to find the glass girl, to break her down and possess her wholly.

The days preceding the Earth's complete consumption by ice are marked by political turmoil and warfare. Strange new factions emerge to assert their will on the general public. Trust mostly disappears from society, relations are splintered. Though the threat of destruction is singular, there is no movement towards organization; hope has completely vanished from the icy world and order has been utterly destroyed by man.

"I was oppressed . . . by the enormity of what had been done, the weight of collective guilt. A frightful crime had been committed, against nature, against the universe, against life. By rejecting life, man had destroyed the immemorial order, destroyed the world, now everything was about to crash down in ruins."