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THIS IS AN AUDIO TRANSCRIPT OF SOFIA ROSSI'S LETTERS (COMMENTED ON BY CURATOR: Farst Everost.)
"Sin is not something that is born into, one must live and learn yet still choose to walk the path of sin. There are many men and women who have been born into sin yet find themselves in the good graces of our savior. Faith is given to you at birth, faith in your mother, faith in your father and faith in the father of all: God."
[This is the first passage of sister Sofia's most saddening letter. She was 29 at the time of the "incident", she lived as a nun. A woman of god and a servant most devout, I envy her sometimes. Most definitely I do not envy her doomed lesbian relationships or that the fact that most other people on this research program assume her to be a trans man but rather I envy her unshakable belief in a god above us. Sister Sofia was most definitely in love with another nun, in a most horrible time of gays and lesbians being persecuted and not allowed to marry. The time being 1990-2009. No matter how things ended I must tell you the beginning of this tale as well.
Sister Sofia Rossi was born in 1980, in the month of June. She was born into a very destitute family and was given to the Vatican as soon as possible, we haven't managed to find an interview with her birth parents since their records have been cleared out completely from anywhere they might have been recorded. For the world and for the nunnery of the Vatican City, Sofia Rossi was born there, sinned there in her thoughts of women and with other women, she died there and was buried there. Her grave reads as such:
Sofia Rossi
1980-2009
"A lecherous but most beloved sister, she burned bright."
Sister Sofia was raised in the nunnery as I previously stated and we don't have much cctv footage or footage overall of her appearance. We only have her letters to one "Sister Agatha Abate" and Sister Agatha's letters back to Sister Sofia. Alongside those we have one clear image of the entire nunnery. A polaroid that was in the room of Sister Sofia. The polaroid seems to be a picture of the two, holding hands next to a small bush. Sister Sofia is smiling from ear to ear while Sister Agatha has a small smirk as she lovingly gazes at Sister Sofia.
Sofia has some strands of black hair peeking out from her veil, while Agatha seems to be perfect in her dressing. Sister Agatha also seems remarkably older than Sister Sofia, after interviewing some nuns we found out that Sister Agatha was 44 years of age when she died alongside Sofia.]
"Sister Agatha, might I trouble you with a request? I would love to learn how you clean the baths so well! I never seem to be able to make them as clean as you and I would love to learn from you. From Sister Sofia"
[This is the first of 1011 letters sent between the two women, written in 1994. a simple request of learning from a superior. We presumed that these lessons in cleaning baths was the true start to their relationship but it seems as if Sister Sofia had pined for the woman a bit before she actually wrote this. Sister Sofia used to have a diary which was taken from her after one of the superiors read through it and confiscated it for the following passage.]
"I noticed myself looking at Sister Agatha at mass today, this isn't the first time and I fear it wont be the last. I simply adore her smile and her hooked nose, the crows feet in her eyes and the dimples I see as she smiles. I find myself thinking of where all those cute freckles might lead."
[She was punished for these "lecherous" thoughts with two whippings, being stripped of her diary and an addition of three hours of prayer into her already packed daily schedule. We have no clue on how the relationshjp sharpened outside of these letters but they gave us a pretty good idea of the series of events. Things start to heat up a little bit more once Sister Sofia reaches the age of eighteen.]
"Dear Sister Sofia, last night you mentioned wondering on what I see in you. I thought upon it and I now have an answer, sometimes I see the little baby that wailed in the crib that I placed her into and other times I see a growing woman. A woman who might be preyed upon outside of the nunnery. maybe insi Sometimes I do see something most strange, a little flame maybe? When I first laid eyes on you, I thought about the smallest little candle. When we washed the baths together and you took special care of looking at my arms and asked to change my outfit for me since it got wet I saw a roaring wildfire in your eyes.
You to me are a growing flame, my flame has flickered out long before you were born. It was properly extinguished by mother superior, I was once like you burdened by the path of sin.
Sister Agatha."
[If only Sister Agatha knew how correct her premonition of Sister Sofia being a flame was. Here we see that she has crossed out a part of her sentence, I presume she would have continued "maybe inside the nunnery too" but those are my own thoughts. As you might have caught on dear listener, Sister Sofia's crush does not seem once sided. Perhaps we should be glad that Sister Agatha only started to show these feelings to Sister Sofia once she reached adulthood but who knows how these feelings came to her and at what time. After all the church does not have the best track record with pedophilia. Either way mother superior seems like a very dreadful woman, extinguishing the flames of Sister Agatha long ago. Many researchers (including myself) like to think of "flames" in these letters as a synonym for lesbian love within the Vatican.]
"Dear Sister Agatha, I too see small flickers of flame from time to time. I've been afraid that they might have been the roaring fires of hell, beckoning me towards Satan's path as I think of you at night. I haven't been able to speak of these visions, I am afraid of what Mother Superior might think of me if I had mentioned it to her. The flames and sparks sometimes appear in my dreams, sometimes in the corners of my sight but most importantly I see it in you. I beg of you to believe me, I don't think Mother Superior has extinguished your flame quite yet. Might we talk about this at your room someday?
Sister Sofia."
[A bold move from our dearest Sister Sofia, inviting herself to Sister Agatha's room. We do not have any witness statements about the specifics of whether or not they actually saw each other after these letters as Sister Sofia suggested but many did mention that Sister Agatha seemed extremely close to Sister Sofia. As for the visions of fire and flames that Sister Sofia (whom I will now start calling Sofia for time's sake, I still have about three more commentaries to make.) mentioned in her letter to Agatha, many people think that she might have been suffering from religious psychosis or some form of mental illness. Unlike Agatha, Sofia seems to quite literally be able to see the flames she mentions in her letters.
The two of them are quite the cute pair and if I were allowed to have preferences (which I am not and this is not an official statement from S.I.T.) I would say that these two were my favorite to look into. Some of the nuns that I interviewed did happen to mention that both Agatha and Sofia were seen being practically dragged along to her office by mother superior around the time that these letters were written. The following letters seem quite more sulking.]
"Sister Sofia, I must ask or rather demand that you wouldn't stare at me like you do during dinner. I find it quite perturbing and don't think I don't notice you staring at me during mass, while cleaning the baths, while you water the flowers or as you pass me by in the courtyards. I would rather not get another punishment from mother superior.
Sister Agatha."
[If you are perceptive you might have noticed that Agatha has stopped using "Dear" at the start of her letter to Sofia, perhaps she was attempting to make some distance between the two after whatever happened at the mother superiors office. It seems however that the roaring wildfire that is Sofia's love for Agatha was not disturbed by the smallest amount, as seen in her reply.]
"Dearest Sister Agatha, I do so apologize but I find you far too entrancing and charming to compel myself to stop. Would you perhaps come give me a talking to in my room about your issues with my staring?"
[The following letter was found deep behind Sofia's desk, seemingly hidden from sight so that she might forget it.]
"Sofia. You overstep your own charms. Do NOT talk to me like that again.
Sister Agatha"
[Quite a short reply, the letter was somewhat covered in dried up tears. It took another five years before the next letters were exchanged. I cannot even imagine how awful that must have felt for Sofia but I find myself wondering on how Agatha must have felt after these events. She was very clearly heavily disturbed by whatever the mother superior subjected them both to, far more than Sofia was. Some nuns mentioned that she walked with a small limp after the meeting and the coroner found that Agatha's Tibia (the shin bone) had healed incorrectly. Leading to chronic pain and a limp, I shudder to think of what else Agatha must have faced if this was not her first run in with the mother superior about her lesbian desires.
Here is the first letter that Sofia sent to Agatha after five years of no letters exchanged between the two.]
"Sister Agatha, I find myself in possession of a recording of the song "Religious man" by "Mister Loco". It was given to me by the Mother Superior after these recent years of "excellent behavior" could I ask you to listen to it with me? I promise I have no ulterior motives.
Your junior, Sister Sofia."
[We do see a lot more restraint from Sofia here but I somehow doubt her not having any ulterior motives. The song she is referencing is also included in the movie "Nacho Libre" starring Jack Black which would not come out for another 3 years at the time this letter was written and exchanged with Agatha. (Nacho Libre came out in 2006 and the current year is 2003) Here is a passage of Sofia's journal that was hidden under her bed near the same time that she gave Agatha this letter.]
"The flames simply won't end, I see them more and more. Burning from the sun setting ablaze the garden in the courtyard, burning away the books in the library and scorching through Mother Superior's head as she leads mass. Some days its better and other days it is far far worse. I don't know how much longer before my entire world is on fire, the only times the flames seem to calm is when I look at Sister Agatha. She calms me ever so much but it hurts my heart deeply to think about writing her a letter. I've dozens of ways to approach her but I cannot muster the courage to do so. Perhaps I will try to lure her in with that song I received from Mother Superior."
[It seems that Sofia's visions of hellfire have only gotten worse over the years, I asked about what might be causing these visions with our mental health specialist and she mentioned that it might be Sofia's unmedicated schizophrenia deteriorating her mind. It seems that even earlier entries in Sofia's first journal had also mentioned the smallest flickers of flame and once I asked the mother superior about Sofia's obsession with flames, the mother superior gave the following statement.]
"Perhaps she was simply seeing her future with the fires of hell. Ever since she was a small child she stared into the flames of our stoves, fireplaces and even candles. As a baby she would wail endlessly until a candle was set near her crib at night, she just could not sleep in the dark."
[You might at first think "Well most children don't like to sleep in the dark, they're afraid of what they can't see so that might be just a normal child thing." I however theorize that it might have been destiny or fate maybe even god. Showing little Sofia what her future held. Sofia Rossi suffered from spontaneous human combustion, in simple words she one day was simply set ablaze. We presume that it might have been due to something supernatural but have no conclusive evidence, it might have also been due to natural causes but nothing really explains it. There was no oil or anything else really flammable found on her corpse due to it being burned quite badly.
Sofia Rossi was found embracing onto Agatha Abate on the morning of October 15th in 2009 at the time of 6.22 AM. They were both already dead at the time they were found so the presumption is that they must have been burning for at least an hour.]
"Sister Sofia, I do humbly accept your invitation. I will see myself to your room tonight.
Sister Agatha."
[The song religous man is quite nice and I do recommend listening to it if you haven't already. It seems that Agatha has once again warmed up to the idea of seeing Sofia, which I was quite happy to read. I certainly was not as happy as Sofia was, this is her journal entry about the meeting.]
"YES! Sister Agatha came to my room last night and we had relations! She wasn't as cold as last time and we started by listening to the song, I must have heard it a thousand times by now so I sang along to it. I looked up at Agatha and she had a sly smirk on her face, I asked what was so funny and she told me that she hadn't seen me so happy in a long long time. I leaned on her shoulder and she placed my head on her lap, I stared at her for a long time for such a long time that I felt as if the world passed me by. She looked back into my eyes and once the song ended and restarted she leaned down and placed a kiss on my lips! Things escalated from that but I think I might die happily now! If only I could take her by the hand and escape the Vatican with her.
Screw the mother superior, screw god, everything else can burn away so long as I can hold onto Agatha like I did after the deed was done.
Her beautiful olive skin, her angelic nose, her amazing black hair.
Her curves, her bosom, her backside.
She must be an angel sent from god."
[It seems that Sofia wanted to leave the church for her love and her wish would be granted, in a sick and twisted way. I find myself thinking about how Sofia must have felt, being burned alive by the flames she had seen for all her life searching for Agatha in the nunnery. How scared must have Agatha been? Seeing her lover being taken by the fires of hell as she walked while burning alive, her skin, her hair and her clothes slowly being fused with her body. What a truly horrible way to die but for now we can still read some more letters between the two. I've only shown you 7 out of the 934 letters so far since most of them are simply the pair talking about their days and what happened during them. Out of the remaining 57 letters 33 of them were invitations from either Sofia or Agatha for another night visit to one another's rooms and 12 more letters were invites to the baths and gardens. To say the least after the first time they were very eager to see each other more often.]
"Dearest Agatha, I wish to talk to you and I mean that. The flames I've been speaking of seem to have only gotten worse in recent times, I am sorry for burdening you with my issues but I want to talk to someone about this."
Your dearest Sofia."
[At this point they've dropped the "sister" honorific in their letters to one another, they stopped using the honorifics two letters after listening to religious man. We don't have any idea of what the two might have discussed but this letter was sent only three days before Sofia Rossi suffered from spontaneous human combustion. So perhaps this was a signal for the end times for Sofia, within this folded letter we found the aforementioned polaroid. Within the following reply we found another polaroid.]
"Dearest Sofia, I am open to discussion whenever you wish.
Your dearest."
[Within this very short letter back we found three polaroids. One of Sofia fully naked and posing in bed. Her hands are nestled on her lap as moonlight shows her skin, supple breasts and pubic hair peeking out from her crossed legs and slight amounts of armpit hair peeking out too the polaroid has hearts lovingly drawn onto the corners by Agatha. The second polaroid is of Agatha who is also naked, perhaps Agatha took it for herself out of embarrassment or fearing how much Sofia would masturbate to it. Agatha has stretchmarks on her stomach and arms, she has rather a rather large chest and a few scars on her forearms and thighs. She has a wide toothy grin as she gazes towards the camera. The third polaroid is of Sofia and Agatha in bed, taken by Sofia as the two held one another close.]
[I have already told you how this story ends and I don't have much else to say, I simply want you to think about these two sometimes. Sister's Sofia and Agatha of Vatican City. Oh I should mention that Agatha's grave read as following:
Agatha Abate
1965-2009
"Beloved by all."
The lovers graves are right next to one another and the mother superior often places flowers onto Agatha's grave, none are left for Sofia Rossi but sometimes if the wind blows just right some flowers drift from Agatha's grave to Sofia's almost as if she is giving some of her flowers to her lover.
END OF AUDIO TRANSCRIPT]