Bita

“You don't believe the sky is falling until a chunk of it falls on you.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Testaments

“And so, with a slow sweep of the arm that remained forever etched in my memory, he took out a match, lit it, and tossed it onto the pile of books. With a quiet huff...ff...ff the flames rippled over the pages, catching first the old books with the brown paper whose smell I loved so much. I vividly remember how Danko's Burning Heart was engulfed in flames that then licked at Luce's skirt who, desperately trying to protect herself from the fire in pages of Romain Rolland's book, held Pierre tightly to her breast. I watched as the fire spread to the intertwined lovers Pierre and Natasha, Heathcliff and Cathrine Earnshaw, Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler, Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy, abelard and Heloise, Tristan and Isolde, Salaman and Absal, Vis and Ramin, Vamegh and Azra, Zohreh and Manuchehr, shirin and Farhad, Leyli and Majnun, Arthur and Gemma, the Rose and the Little Prince, before they had the chance to smell or kiss each other again, or whisper. "I love you" one last time.”
― Shokoofeh Azar, The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree

“He actually does know everything by Rumi, too, without the two of us ever having spent time together leafing through the poetry volumes that he bought me for our engagement, though that was what I always wanted us to do. I wanted to share it with him, the rustle of the pages, the effect of every word, and now I'm the one who doesn't dare pick up the books, fearing that they might have lost their power somewhere between Tehran, Istanbul, East Berlin, and here.”
― Shida Bazyar, The Nights Are Quiet in Tehran

“Edward Jenner’s discovery of vaccination drew harsh criticism from the pulpit. Clergymen denounced the doctor for having put himself above God. Only the Almighty, they said, sends illness and only the Almighty cures it. Vaccination, critics charged, was “a diabolical operation,” and its inventor was “flying in the face of Providence”
― Albert Marrin, Very, Very, Very Dreadful: The Influenza Pandemic of 1918