Mali i Qumështit – The Mountain of Milk

Novella, p. 85, Onufri Publishing A woman in her late thirties, deeply passionate about the Alps, is expecting her first child after a long and intimate battle with her own body. The story opens on her final day in a remote village nestled near the mountain crowns—a place where she had spent part of her life immersing herself in the raw, sacred world of the highlands. Upon returning to the city, to the small apartment where her partner awaits her, she suffers a cerebral hemorrhage. As she and the life growing within her fight to survive, she retreats inward—into memories of her own childhood and of her mother during pregnancy. Vivid recollections resurface: days of vitality spent ascending alpine trails hand in hand with her lover, and the tender, dreamlike season when they first fell in love. Now paralyzed in the wake of the hemorrhage, she discovers a window of consciousness still open within her mind. Through deep meditation, she journeys to a surreal, utopian mountain inhabited solely by pregnant women. There, a maternal figure—an archetype of motherhood—guides them, teaching each woman the sacred knowledge of her changing body. According to this maternal spirit, all pregnant women exist in two parallel realms: the physical world and the mythical Mountain of Milk. Some eventually bid farewell to the mountain when they bring new life into the world—while others remain there, forever part of its timeless embrace.