Through these novellas stroll Ethiopian murderers, the Queen of Sheba, a transvestite named Julio Abril, and ppuppulni-huhs, or swollen iguanas, whose erotic intentions are unclear. Cameras hiss among ruins. Airplanes and helicopters roar overhead, unloading badies and bombs. The forests themselves are dangerous: they exude poisons in the way flowers exude perfumes. Dreams become visible in the heroin daze of Dominique, who drifts—naked except for her very high heeled shoes—past craps tables, slot machines, and workmen whose granted hands create starlets, or perhaps goddesses, from past de cana, the pith of the corn stalk.