The Black Shila Quotes

“As we live the long-overdue anguish of fearing them, our greatest nightmares refuse to happen. As soon as we relax, they snatch us, unprepared. The consolation is that the pain of having them, not rarely, is less than that of waiting for them. When I lost everything, I felt like I was a victim. What a strange feeling! I reassessed everything that had happened to me and I felt like a miserable, a pitiful boy. And I fell into the trap of the idiots, who when suffering feel privileged, as if suffering was synonymous with suffering well. I needed to suffer more. I needed to suffer well. Without allowing fear and pain to overwhelm me. Assigning to events no more consideration than they deserved.”
― S. Zuppardi, The Black Shila

“There are indeed certain sorrows that never leave our hearts. They lie dormant, hidden beneath the surface of our skin, erupting loudly when provoked by even a single foul word.”
― S. Zuppardi, The Black Shila

“There is nothing more frightening than consciously confronting a choice that can irrevocably change our future. It's that very moment when choosing a path means forever burning all others. That was the feeling I experienced in that room, the moment I saw Serena, the woman with the glass eyes, pointing the gun at me.”
― S. Zuppardi, The Black Shila

“I watched the collapse of my life. All that I had dreamed of becoming was decimated by an endless series of misfortunes. I couldn't stop the changes; they unfolded, showing me that I had no control over fate. I had no right to want anything, for I lost it in the wanting, as if life intended to teach me a lesson. Yet, my heart was like the universe—mysterious. I believed rescue would come, and it always did.”
― S. Zuppardi, The Black Shila

“A long time passed before I discovered what had happened to her. Months went by as I built up the image of her in my mind. I vividly remembered the days in Serria, the harmless sea seen through the thick glass windows, her discreet but sincere smile, and the blue-eyed pool I thought loved me. No drug could lift my morale as she did. She overlooked my weaknesses. She never mentioned Eleonor, knowing just the name would destabilize me. We entrusted many things to each other. Of course, I sought accurate reports of her stay on Planet Babylon and kept all digital records of her treatment. I read them exhaustively, searching for an explanation, but nothing could explain what followed. From that fateful day, I managed only to gather disconnected fragments of her supposed life on the peripheral planets. Clues that might lead to her. An incomplete puzzle of information. I was sure something must have happened to her DNA. There were so many rumors about the glass-eyed woman that until the day I finally saw her, it seemed impossible to know for sure whether Serena, the one in my memory, ever really existed.”
― S. Zuppardi, The Black Shila

“It ended there. All that could have been, but was not. Everything that was supposed to happen, but did not. When I think of who I was before that day, it seems like two different lives. There's a rupture, a discontinuity in the story. It's as if the girl I was had another ending, and the person I am now is the result of a completely different childhood. I have learned that in life, we have no right to make mistakes. One mistake can cost us everything. Yet, before reaching that point, it’s not a crime to fall apart. I allowed myself to lose my way because I had so much to say to all the perpetrators of my torment, but I would never get the chance. I had to bury those words so deeply, until they no longer mattered. This process left me on the verge of collapse. I admit, I only overcame the anguish of my failures when, some time later, I stopped deceiving myself. As I heard the music playing in the halls of Munlaat, I realized: bygones are bygones. What matters is now. It’s true that sometimes we need life to shine a light on us, or rather, put us in the spotlight. That meeting in the movement's camp did just that for me. I decided it was time to start making better decisions. My future was not in Thita.”
― S. Zuppardi, The Black Shila

“The distress of seeing my problems immediately solved corroded me. As long as we live like this, we are never free. We are tied to our weaknesses, always wanting to know what will come next, what others are thinking, what we should do. This is a habit to which we should not bow. We have to live in the present. I understood this very well during those many days in the Closed Forest, where I wavered between the desire to simply give up and the urge to continue, hoping to see the day when the evil that had befallen me was finally over. I reached a point where I was not running from the fields anymore, but from myself. In the end, I discovered that no matter where I was, I would have to face myself.”
― S. Zuppardi, The Black Shila

“These flowers are so beautiful, but they burn if we touch them. They shouldn't be so beautiful; they should at least have thorns. Then they would be like alcohol — bitter, to keep us from getting drunk.”
― S. Zuppardi, The Black Shila