Sofia Raposo de Almeida

“The angels saw him, who manage those skies he put his question to: they saw him, for this ring of earth is a place they often stop by, to gaze into it, as into a mirror, or through it, as through a keyhole. They smiled, hearing his question; and then one by one turned away, to look over their shoulders – for they were disturbed by a noise, a noise as of footfalls far away and faint, the footfalls of someone coming through behind.”
― John Crowley, Ægypt

“And then he understands: it’s a loop, an endless loop of injured children, growing old but keeping their pain fresh and new, causing yet more injury and starting the whole cycle over again.”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, City of Miracles

“I have tried not to think about them, but their past-world bleeds into our present-world, into its sky, into its dust. Did the present-world, the world that is, ever bleed into theirs, the world that was? I imagine one of them standing by the river that is now a dry scar in our landscape, a woman who is not young or old, or perhaps a man, it doesn’t matter. Her hair is pale brown and she is looking into the water that rushes by, muddy perhaps, perhaps clear, and something that has not yet been is bleeding into her thoughts.

I would like to think she turns around and goes home and does one thing differently that day because of what she has imagined, and again the day after, and the day after that.

Yet I see another her, who turns away and doesn’t do anything differently, and I can’t tell which one of them is real and which one is a reflection in clear, still water, almost sharp enough to be mistaken for real.

I look at the sky and I look at the light and I look at the shape of the earth, all the same as theirs, and yet not, and the bleeding never stops.”
― Emmi Itäranta, Memory of Water

“I love its potential. I hate its past. And I don’t like what it is.’ She hugs her knees close to her chest. ‘The way you feel about the place you grew up in is a lot like how you feel about your family.”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, City of Blades