“At the edge of the field Silva and Stefan witnessed heartrending images in greyscale as thousands of desperate refugees streamed down the road in leaden shades of melancholy. This somber line of tired and dirty humans moved so close together that they jostled each other with each step; their random movements reminded Silva of corks bobbing in a slow moving stream. They watched them pass from the side of the road, but eventually fell-in, trudging along with the suffering others, feeling safer in numbers, hoping for a destination worth finding.” WarFictionHistoryDramaDeceptionInsecurityAnguishFast PacedSoldiers Book:Magenta Source: Magenta
“The problem with bearing fanatical witness to this kind of human depravity is that ambiguity and contradiction easily overwhelm the nuance required for understanding. There seems to me that no logic applies to our time of terror, as if it were a dream. There was no lapse of incoherence; none of it was incomprehensible; our shared pain was not sensible then and unexplainable afterwards. It was actually all too real all the time, and we were simply trying to navigate an uncertain passage through it in search of safety.” WarFictionHistoryDramaSurvivalDeceptionInsecurityFightAnguishFast Paced Book:Magenta Source: Magenta
“But the floor retained an unparalleled measure of excellence with a decorative array of ceramic tiles precisely laid by an anonymous Muslim artisan with limitless patience, pride, or skill. He left behind an ornate work of art in a short, squat, non-descript building near the most dangerous piece of real estate on the planet. Silva often wondered how an architect so careless came to work with a craftsman so precise. Looking at that floor, she often thought that if everyone applied just a fraction of his dedication to their own work, it might cancel out the hatred driving the destruction.” WarDarkFictionHistoryDramaSurvivalDeceptionInsecurityFightFast Paced Book:Magenta Source: Magenta
“Nothing remains. The destruction is complete: love, lives, families, friends, cities, homes – all gone now. All our efforts to be good, to do the right thing, to act well, to be just and generous are now for naught. Because juxtaposed against any hope for fairness is wickedness, pure and simple. In some abstract formulation these things may exist in equal measure, which is to say that the scales balance when taking all things into consideration. But that is fantasy, the stuff of religion, hope beyond all reason. Because for those caught in the whirlwind, in the chaos of manifest evil, despair is all there is. Civilization falls away: everything is pointless now. Survival requires reciprocity. What then if there is none?” WarFictionViolenceJournalistInsecurityFragileBosniaDeceptionsFiction Drama Book:Magenta Source: Magenta