Simplicio is a customs official in independent East Timor who lives with the trauma of torture he suffered during the 11 November 1991 massacre by the Indonesian military. He survived the massacre, in Dili’s Santa Cruz cemetery, but lives with images of his student friends who didn’t. His ear was cut off by a soldier at the height of the violence, he was later detained at Lahane hospital and Polda police barracks, Dili, before transfer to the eastern town of Lospalos, where he became a slave labourer for the elite Kostrad regiment during two years.