On the first day of the new year, no one dies -- causing celebration among the general public and consternation among politicians, religious leaders, morticians and doctors. Then reality hits home as families are left to care for the permanently dying. Death sits in her chilly apartment and contemplates her experiment: What if no one ever died again? What if she, death with a small d, were to become human and fall in love? En esta novela la muerte...

Fernando returns home after a prolonged absence to attend to his most beloved brother, Dario, an AIDS patient whose health is slowly deteriorating owing to his alcohol and marijuana use. Vallejo indulges in digressions into past memories that they both share, which include endless adolescent partying and homosexual love affairs. La Muerte (Death), the character around whom the narrative ultimately revolves, appears throughout, touching different members...

"En un presente alternativo, en el que es posible predecir la muerte con un plazo de veinticuatro horas, Mateo Torrez y Rufus Emeterio acaban de recibir la llamada más temida: la misma que te avisa de que ha llegado tu hora final. En circunstancias normales, es poco probable que Mateo y Rufus se hubieran conocido. Pero sus circunstancias no son normales en absoluto. Porque les quedan, a lo sumo, veinticuatro horas de vida. Y han decidido recurrir...

"Mamá prometió cuidarnos siempre. Y las promesas de mamá no se rompen nunca." -- "A little fox lives in the countryside with his dad: Before she died, his mother made them a promise: she would always take care of them. So he knows that, even if she is not there with them, he can find her in everything that surrounds them: in the kitchen fire, in the yarn he left at home, in the forest, and above all, in the stars." --