The Shoe and Leg of the Dead Girl

Early in the narrative, Chula is traumatized by seeing, on a news report, the leg of a girl around her age who had been blown apart in an explosion that was part of Colombia's ongoing drug wars - the girl's shoe was still on her foot. For Chula and the reader, the image, the leg, and the shoe all represent the randomness and inescapable presence of danger and death associated with living in Colombia, torn apart by drug wars. The image is personal and immediate, in that she starts to feel like she could have been that girl, her life destroyed in a similar way.