There are memories that remain suspended between childhood and catastrophe. At the time they happen, they do not feel historical. They do not announce themselves as trauma. They arrive disguised as confusion, as heat, as adults behaving strangely while children continue playing because they do not yet understand danger.

For me, one of those memories begins with a grenade.

I was a child during the Salvadoran Civil War, playing outside with my sister Flor in the front yard of our house in San Jorge. We spent most afternoons together beneath the shade of a tigüilote tree (Cordia dentata) while chickens wandered between stones and dust drifted through the heat rising from the road. We were only two years apart and inseparable in the way children sometimes are before the world teaches them fear.

At that age, life was measured in games, not consequences.

I remember the metallic warmth of the late afternoon, the smell of dry earth, and the sound of sandals scraping the street when my brother Rubén arrived with his friend Sergio. Both belonged to the local civil defense.

Rubén looked tense the moment I saw him.

At first, I did not understand what he was holding. I only........

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