Children of the Days (26 page)

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Authors: Eduardo Galeano

BOOK: Children of the Days
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December 31
V
OYAGE OF THE
W
ORD

In Rome in the year 208, Quintus Serenus Sammonicus wrote
Liber medecinalis
, a book in which he revealed his discoveries in the arts of healing.

Among other remedies, this physician to two emperors, poet and owner of the best library of his time, proposed an infallible way to avoid tertian fever and keep death at bay: by hanging a word across your chest day and night.

The word was “Abracadabra,” which in ancient Hebrew meant and still means, “Give your fire until the last of your days.”

Contents

January

  1: Today

  2: From Fire to Fire

  3: Memory on Legs

  4: Land That Attracts

  5: Land That Speaks

  6: Land That Awaits

  7: The Granddaughter

  8: I Will Not Say Good-bye

  9: Elegy to Brevity

10: Distances

11: The Pleasure of Going

12: The Rush to Get There

13: Earth That Bellows

14: The Haitian Curse

15: The Shoe

16: The Wet Law

17: The Man Who Executed God

18: Holy Water

19: With Him Was Born an Era

20: Sacred Serpent

21: They Walked on Water

22: A Kingdom Moves

23: Civilizing Mother

24: Civilizing Father

25: The Right to Roguery

26: The Second Founding of Bolivia

27: Open Your Ears

28: Open Your Mind

29: Humbly I Speak

30: The Catapult

31: We Are Made of Wind

February

  1: An Admiral Torn to Pieces

  2: The Goddess Is Celebrating

  3: Carnival Takes Wing

  4: The Threat

  5: In Two Voices

  6: The Wail

  7: The Eighth Bolt

  8: General Smooch

  9: Marble That Breathes

10: A Victory for Civilization

11: No

12: World Breastfeeding Day

13: The Danger of Playing

14: Stolen Children

15: More Stolen Children

16: The Condor Plan

17: The Celebration That Was Not

18: Bereft of Him

19: Perhaps This Is How Horacio Quiroga Would Have Written About His Own Death

20: World Day of Social Justice

21: The World Shrinks

22: Silence

23: The Book of Marvels

24: A Lesson in Realism

25: Night of the Kuna

26: My Africa

27: Even Banks Are Mortal

28: When

29: Not Gone with the Wind

March

  1: Was

  2: Whistling, I Speak

  3: The Founding Mothers of Brazil

  4: The Saudi Miracle

  5: Divorce as Good Hygiene

  6: The Florist

  7: The Witches

  8: Homages

  9: The Day Mexico Invaded the United States

10: The Devil Played the Violin

11: The Left Is the University of the Right

12: Sleep Knows More Than Wakefulness

13: A Clear Conscience

14:
Capital

15: Voices in the Night

16: Storytellers

17: They Knew How to Listen

18: With Their Gods Inside

19: Birth of the Movies

20: The World Upside Down

21: The World as It Is

22: World Water Day

23: Why We Massacred the Indians

24: Why We Disappeared the Disappeared

25: The Annunciation

26: Maya Liberators

27: World Theater Day

28: Manufacturing Africa

29: The Jungle Was Here

30: International Domestic Workers Day in Latin America

31: This Flea

April

  1: The First Bishop

  2: Manufacturing Public Opinion

  3: Good Guys

  4: The Ghost

  5: Day of Light

  6: Night Crossing

  7: The Doctor's Bill

  8: The Man Who Was Born Many Times

  9: Good Health

10: Manufacturing Disease

11: Opinion Makers

12: Manufacturing the Guilty Party

13: We Knew Not How to See You

14: Grand or Just Plain Big?

15: The Black Paintings

16: The Flamenco Song

17: Caruso Sang and Ran

18: Keep an Eye on This Guy

19: Children of the Clouds

20: Manufacturing Mistakes

21: The Indignant One

22: Earth Day

23: Fame Is Baloney

24: The Perils of Publishing

25: Don't Save Me, Please

26: Nothing Happened Here

27: Life's Twists and Turns

28: This Insecure World

29: She Doesn't Forget

30: Memory's Circles

May

  1: International Workers' Day

  2: Operation Geronimo

  3: Dishonor

  4: While the Night Lasts

  5: By Singing I Rebuke

  6: Apparitions

  7: The Party Poopers

  8: The Tasmanian Devil

  9: Born to Find Him

10: The Unforgivable

11: Mr. Everything

12: Living Seismographs

13: To Sing, to See

14: Someone Else's Debt

15: May Tomorrow Be More Than Just Another Name for Today

16: Off to the Loony Bin

17: Home

18: Memory's Voyage

19: The Prophet Mark

20: A Rare Act of Sanity

21: World Day for Cultural Diversity

22: Tintin Among the Savages

23: Manufacturing Power

24: The Heretics and the Saint

25: Heresies

26: Sherlock Holmes Died Twice

27: Beloved Vagabond

28: Oświęcim

29: Vampires

30: From the Stake to the Altar

31: The Incombustible Lady

June

  1: Saintly Men

  2: Indians Are Persons

  3: Atahualpa's Revenge

  4: Memory of the Future

  5: Nature Is Not Mute

  6: The Mountains That Were

  7: The Poet King

  8: Sacrilege

  9: Sacrilegious Women

10: And a Century Later

11: The Man Who Sold the Eiffel Tower

12: The Mystery Explained

13: Collateral Damage

14: Flag as Disguise

15: A Woman Talks

16: I've Got Something to Tell You

17: Tomasa Didn't Pay

18: Susan Didn't Pay Either

19: Danger: Bicycles!

20: That Shortcoming

21: We Are All You

22: The World's Waist

23: Fires

24: The Sun

25: The Moon

26: The Kingdom of Fear

27: We Are All Guilty

28: Hell

29: The Great Heretofore

30: A Nuisance Is Born

July

  1: One Terrorist Fewer

  2: Olympic Prehistory

  3: The Stone in the Hole

  4: The Southern Cross

  5: The Right to Laugh

  6: Fool Me

  7: Fridamania

  8: Leader for Life

  9: The Suns the Night Hides

10: Manufacturing Novels

11: Manufacturing Tears

12: Consecration of the Top Scorer

13: The Goal of the Century

14: The Losers' Trunk

15: An Exorcism

16: My Dear Enemy

17: International Justice Day

18: History Is a Roll of the Dice

19: The First Tourist on Rio's Beaches

20: The Interloper

21: The Other Astronaut

22: The Other Moon

23: Twins

24: Sinners Be Damned

25: Recipe for Spreading the Plague

26: It's Raining Cats

27: The Locomotive from Prague

28: Testament

29: We Want a Different Time

30: International Friendship Day

31: Time Foretold

August

  1: Our Mother Who Art in Earth

  2: Champ

  3: The Beloveds

  4: Clothing Tells the Tale

  5: The Liar Who Was Born Thrice

  6: God's Bomb

  7: Spy On Me

  8: Cursed America

  9: International Day of Indigenous Peoples

10: Manuelas

11: Family

12: Athletes Male and Female

13: The Right to Bravery

14: The Mosquito Maniac

15: The Jewel and the Crown

16: Suicide Seeds

17: Dangerous Woman

18: The Network of Networks

19: War on the Chessboard

20: Heaven's Workforce

21: The Division of Labor

22: The Best Workers

23: The Impossible Country

24: It Was the Day of the Roman God of Fire

25: The Imprisoned City Is Rescued

26: Purity of the Faith

27: Purity of the Race

28: “I Have a Dream”

29: Colored Man

30: Day of the Disappeared

31: Heroes

September

  1: Traitors

  2: The Inventor of Preemptive War

  3: Thankful People

  4: I Give My Word

  5: Fight Poverty: Kill Somebody Poor

  6: The International Community

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