Salma

“It is also then that I wish I believed in some sort of life after life, that in another universe, maybe on a small red planet where we have not legs but tails, where we paddle through the atmosphere like seals, where the air itself is sustenance, composed of trillions of molecules of protein and sugar and all one has to do is open one's mouth and inhale in order to remain alive and healthy, maybe you two are there together, floating through the climate. Or maybe he is closer still: maybe he is that gray cat that has begun to sit outside our neighbor's house, purring when I reach out my hand to it; maybe he is that new puppy I see tugging at the end of my other neighbor's leash; maybe he is that toddler I saw running through the square a few months ago, shrieking with joy, his parents huffing after him; maybe he is that flower that suddenly bloomed on the rhododendron bush I thought had died long ago; maybe he is that cloud, that wave, that rain, that mist. It isn't only that he died, or how he died; it is what he died believing. And so I try to be kind to everything I see, and in everything I see, I see him.”
― Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life

“None of them really wanted to listen to someone else’s story anyway; they only wanted to tell their own.”
― Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life

“What he knew, he knew from books, and books lied, they made things prettier.”
― Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life

“هل في الزمن النسيان حقا كما يقولون؟ ليس صحيحا. الزمن يجلو الذاكرة كأنه الماء تغمر الذهب فيه، يوما أو ألف عام فتجده في قاع النهر يلتمع.
لا يفسد الماء سوى المعدن الرخيص، يصيب سطحه ساعة فيعلوه الصدأ.
لايسقط الزمن الأصيل في حياة الإنسان. يعلو موجه، صحيح.
يدفع إلى القاع. يغمر ولكنك إذ تغوص تجد شجيرات المرجان الحمراء، وحبات اللؤ اللؤ تتلألأ في المحار. لا يلفظ البحر سوى الطحالب والحقير من القواقع، وغرناطة هناك كاملة التفاصيل مستقرة في القاع، غارقة.”
― رضوى عاشور | ثلاثية غرناطة