• 1 • Bad days. The darkest days of my life and of Sur’s, more agonizing than the aftermath of the conquest, in which many loved ones were lost. We are no longer those startled little birds tortured in the Mother of Goodness’s lair, at the mercy of Munhadira the peasant and her chronic scrawling on the walls of our lives. Thing have gotten much worse. Many of us have been out on the streets of Sur and seen the pain first hand. We have seen the demolished homes, the uprooted trees, the fires whose ashes constantly renew. We have seen scorpions and snakes slithering openly, stray cats and dogs downcast, unable to meow or bark, unable to find a scrap of food among the rubbish. Many girls and women have been summoned for grand fantasies, in various places within Sur and beyond. Some marrie

