Dark Continent and Other Stories Quotes

“A strange terrain, that: the dark continent. No man's land and no one woman's: a lush wilderness to be explored jointly by comrades, no barbed wire, no land mines, but a dangerous place all the same, a hot jungle where only desire could be quenched. If you did not burn, you could not go there. A small region — perhaps no larger than the fleshy plains between the hip bones. Perhaps no bigger than a bed: the sheeted moors, pillows mounded into mountain passes, quilts scooped into canyons, woman-and-man-made lakes, perilous passages only lovers could navigate. A country, but not a nation. A trackless peninsula, perpetually discovered, recovered, a land you could return to and yet remain forever lost.”
― Laura Kalpakian, Dark Continent and Other Stories