#bosnianwar

It’s been 1 year, 8 months and 11 days since our brigade left Prijedor.

People don’t count the days in Sarajevo because every day is the same. What difference would it make? Putting a number on it would make them seem terribly long, or even worse; like counting the bulleted pimples that pollute our buildings. You'd be there forever.

But I do.

I’m not sure what hope means, if it means anything these days. And if I am one that carries the notion of ‘hope’ by numbering my days, I simply think of it as the ‘banality of hope’—survival.

But 1 year, 8 Months and 11 days ago, a little boy tugged on my sleeve, stuck a daffodil in my hand, and waved a scrap piece of paper in my face.

* * * *

We are situated in the eastern part of the city, where the lost souls of ancient books are taken by the breath of the reaper and bled back into the river. Back in Prijedor, my commander praised me for being good on my feet. An unfortunate skill in this neck of the woods. Sarajevo needed ground troops. Sarajevo had decided my fate.

A swarm of angry birds land on stone remains of the old wall that separates me from the Milijacka. They’re unruly, unrelenting and unforgiving for the fact that the only meal up for grabs in this city is a decomposing arm with maggot dressing. In its course, the Milijacka will carry the occasional corpse down its stream. Eventually, it will form a curve that travels in a south-easterly direction and trail on out of the city towards Pale, where our letters become Cyrillic. It is a triumph to leave Sarajevo. Every man and his wife's dream. Congratulations you’re safe! But you'll be too dead to see it.

There is a windless hollow in my chest where my heart used to be. If you look down, it’s lying at my feet, tethered to a ball and a chain. I've become accustomed to the sour, metallic stench of blood that pours out the eyes of windowless buildings. It suffocates me as though it were the first time. It's stone-cold hand takes me by the neck and wrings it like a wet cloth as I begin to read hope-filled words through tear-filled eyes. The only difference is, that they're not mine.

‘Draga Ajna’. Written in a childlike script.

‘How are you and you famili? Majka say that our countri become dangerus. No food and water. People are hungri.’ There is a pause broken by a scribble of a sad face and a tear that hangs too far from its dotted eye. ‘I miss you, Amina and you famili. I hope you are OK in Sarajevo. It is not good there. I hope you will write back soon. Your friend, Besim’. His letter is short, sweet and signed with a year-old Smurf sticker that ambers at the edges.

Cracks of sniper fire pierce through holes in the sky—pierce through the holes of unanswered questions in my mind. Slugs that feed the parasite of why?. The hair is standing still on my back. The hand that spares my throat leaves its mark as stiffness in the neck. My jaw had been clenched the whole time. It’s my cue to pick my sunken heart up from the floor. The dried up daffodil, still burning a hole in my pocket.

I am scared. Fearful of failure. Haunted by the echoes of childlike cries and childlike dreams. ‘Please, please take this to my friend in Sarajevo!’. More than anything, I am intimidated by the unwavering act of hope. The plea in his eyes, the urge of his word and the adamant tugging on my uniform, as though his world would surely crumble if I don’t answer his call.

I am the most important man in the world. I am the most important courier in the world. I am the God that he utters to at the end of his prayers.

It rained for the first time in three months.

It rained in saddest place in the saddest city in the whole world.

I’ve studied the upholstery on the tattered couch that I crouch behind. I find it fascinating how each thread is woven with another to hold it all together. And I laugh to myself because I find it funny how there are five of us in what used to be a room, united like these threads; albeit hanging on by a thread to hold this unit together.

The room is open, spacious and with a view to die for. I mean it when I say that, for there is a massive hole blown-out where the wall used to be. From it, I can see a layer of cloud descend upon the city. It is like a blanket that covers us from the holy eyes above. I feel like they don’t want to see what goes on down here. We are all sinners, condemned to this granite hell.

But droplets fall in a soft pitter-patter. And come to think of it now, I've forgotten what the sound of rain is like. Maybe it’s good. It will be hard for them to see us from the hills and it will give us a good supply of water.

And now I fight to suppress the laughter that feels like sickness in my chest. Maybe its God’s tears, washing away the blood?

They were my neighbours. I recognise their faces. I went to school with them, played war with them. Now we are at war, with them. They are in my scope. Not in the cardboard, tubular kind that we would use as a lookout as children, but in the sturdy, heavy one that grows out from my gun.

And I, in theirs.

And I wonder, my brothers... will you let me run across the street unharmed, or will you regard me with the same mercy as your old friend that lies sprawled; glass-eyed across the tracks?

Will you regard the Mother and her children trying to gather water from puddles, as my Mother when she fed the whole street?

What about the older Gentleman who searches for home in a priceless neighbourhood of loose brick? Will you regard him as my Father who took us to the hills so we could watch the Shepard and his sheep?

Because for me, my finger aches every time it covers the trigger.