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The Cuckoo's Song

Book by Amra Pajalic · 5 quotes · War, Bosnian War, Coming Of Age

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The Cuckoo's Song Quotes

“When people ask me if I have any siblings I say, 'One, an older brother,' but that’s not the truth. I have a sister, or at least I had a sister one summer years ago. The one thing I remember most about that summer is my sister’s 'f**k me eyes.' Not that I knew what that meant, or that I would have thought of that as a description of my sister, but her 'f**k me eyes' were the reason that she lived with us, and the reason that she left.” Flirty Eyes”

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“Now the combined sounds blend in. The sound of piss trickling into the bucket, or shit dropping down to splatter onto the smelly leftovers from previous visitors. The sound of grenades and bullets wreaking destruction outside. Sometimes it sounds like a rocket-propelled grenade is right over us, that we should expect the roof to cave in on us and crush us to death. But that is another thing we have gotten used to. We don’t flinch anymore when a grenade whistles overhead.” Siege”

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“Mama clutched the wall, her face white with terror. 'Stupid girl!' She shook me by my shoulders. 'You can’t run out like that! Snipers will get you.' Like a long thin finger, my hometown of Srebrenica stretched in the valley between steep hills, clustered along the main road leading in and out of town. The green canopy of the birch tree forest looked like green fairy floss dotted with the burgundy terracotta tile roofs of white rendered houses. The nearby hills were a perfect vantage point for snipers. In the time it took them to shoot once, miss, and correct their target, an innocent bystander would have time to take just one step.” Fragments”

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“The students carried the boy spread-eagled and slammed his genitals against a pole. He dropped on the concrete like a sack of potatoes, holding his crotch, squirming in pain. Sounds that I didn’t think a human could produce came out of his throat. ‘Bastard just got knackered.’ Kayla laughed, noticing my horror. ‘Every school tour starts like this.’” School of Hardknocks”

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“She tucked the sheet around Shirley and fluffed her pillow. Shirley stared blankly at her. The nurse’s composure broke for a moment. Shirley’s stare had a habit of doing that to people, at least until you got used to it. Most Alzheimer patients looked blank. As if the lights were switched off in their brain, but not Shirley. She looked like there was a part of herself fighting to come back. Her eyes were full of terror. Like there was something horrific only she could see and she was screaming for help, but she couldn’t get any part of her body to cooperate.” Friends Forever”

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