October 7, 2001, 6:27 p.m. local time: The first cruise missiles strike Kabul and other cities in Afghanistan. The documentary observes how this war affects the private lives of individuals in other parts of the world: In Paris, a couple's domestic bliss is disrupted, in New York a concert is canceled, and a South African miner works an extra shift. The film attempts to turn one of the basic tenets of chaos theory—that the flap of a butterfly's wings in China can cause a hurricane elsewhere—on its head.