Six stories in the book narrate bleak days when the homeland is threatened by chaos, the collapse of rules, traditions, and laws. Its people lose their protection, reassurance, and safety, drowning in a blue poisonous flood. They find only themselves in their helplessness and weakness, their savagery and harshness. Among themselves and within themselves, the ugliest and hardest aspects emerge, turning their existence into something unimaginable and beyond what their imagination could conceive. It’s as if they are acting and directing a horror movie, forced, without will or choice. These six stories depict pain and astonishment, the pain they face and the wonder of what they live through. It’s like a nightmare they cannot wake up from or escape. These stories describe bleak days we never wish to live…

_ Amira Bahy El-Din