At the age of 71, a highly regarded writer, José Cardoso Pires, suffers a major stroke and loses his memory and the ability to relate to the rest of the world. Everybody seems to defy the famous author to write another novel that recounts this adventure telling his "last story", the most conclusive of his career, the one of his accidental journey to the clear shadows territory.
A writer becomes the main character in the story he intended to write
Oh, little soldier, jaunting happily towards the war, you pay no heed to the red petal you carry, marking the ones who'll fall. Such petal is the sign of the mustard yellow death that will smother you in the pestiferous, muddy trenches. Not, however, without introducing you to some of the damned that have left already, and who are waiting for you in the fields of desolation.
