Celena’s Reviews > The High Mountains of Portugal > Status Update

There are many ways in which life's little centre can be snuffed out. A cold wind pursues us all.

We are risen apes, not fallen angels.

Only song needs to soar in a church; anything fancier is human arrogance disguised as faith.

Gravity itself will be upset and objects float in existential hesitation. But no. The fields remain still, the road continues to lie hard and fixed, and the morning sun does not stop shining with unblinking colours.

Surely the fields will notice,they will rise, dust themselves, and come closer to take a concerned look. The road will curl up like a snake and make sad pronouncements. The sun will darken with desolation.

Everything is in its place, and time is moving with its usual discretion. Then, in an instant, without warning, a little boy tripped everything up.

He has come to see in the priest [Father Ulisses] a man perfected by his suffering. A man to be imitated. Because to suffer and do something is to become someone. And that is what he is doing: He is doing something. He must strike onward to the High Mountains of Portugal and fulfil his quest.

Interesting paragraph on one's weeping personality. What insight.

What are we without the ones we love? Would we ever get over the loss? When he look in his eyes in the mirror when he shaves, he sees empty rooms. And the way he goes about his days, he is a ghost who haunts his own life.