Sarajevo

He sat with his back to the door, breathing heavily, hardly daring to make a sound. Those men were still after him, he knew, and if they didn’t catch him where he sat, they would catch him tomorrow night. If not then, then maybe the next day. Or the next day. When was the next day? It was dark; that much he knew, but the old ideas of day and night were slowly blending together, homogenizing into one continuous stream of gray throughout his existence.

It was spring, 1993. He knew that, of course, because he could remember the number of suns that had risen and fallen since the siege began, all those months ago. But at this moment, with the sounds of the exploding city cascading all around him, he was alone, devoid of light, with this door holding him up his only source of companionship in the deserted city.

There was a time in his life when he knew the world and its beauties. He would wake up and travel down his neighborhood to the market on the corner, buy a loaf of fresh bread, and bring it back to his loving mother and sister. His father was busy campaigning for independence in the capital city, and all of his father’s friends were busy promoting independence from Yugoslavia. His father would sometimes give him pamphlets to distribute around his neighborhood, which he did with pride; he loved his city, his country, and his family. He would come home at night after his Saturday was spent distributing flyers and making sure people knew about the movement, his father reading a newspaper and his mother making dinner, and he would ask his father how the movement was going. “It’s slow,” he would say, “but we will win.”

He wished they hadn’t.

It took him a moment to recognize where he was; this door, this plain, oak door, keeping him from being discovered, tortured and killed by the enemy, the invaders, seemed oddly familiar. His head was resting just below the doorknob; as he perused the bombed out interior of the building he was in, he could see some vaguely familiar objects: a bed frame, buried underneath a mountain of rubble, which in turn left a gaping hole in the ceiling of the third floor flat that he was taking refuge in. beside that stood a small table with a lamp that had, miraculously, survived the bombings.

It was his room. This hiding spot, his place of refuge for so many years, had been transformed by a year of war and his involvement with things that no one else should have ever been involved with, into a palace of destruction. It was ruined, torn to shreds by the Serbian forces that controlled the hills beyond the entrance to the apartment complex. But despite the destruction that lay all around him, he had been transported away from the horrors of modern-day Sarajevo, free from the devastation that lay before him. His room was as it always was, his bed made, his lamp on, his desk cleaned. He did not see the mortar round that had taken a chunk out of the ceiling, nor the bullet holes that decorated the walls. He saw peace.

At first he was mystified by the change, and almost scared. He rose slowly, marveling at the wondrous change in events, as if God himself had plucked him out of the hell that he was living in and transported him to some magic land where there was no war, no horrors, no genocide. His father had always said: “look with your eyes, but feel with your heart;” his words now echoed through his son’s ears as he took a look around this majestic scene. But though his eyes saw his every wish and dream come true, his heart spoke of a different tale, one filled with sorrow, pain and misery.

On the day of independence, his father had come home not in happiness, but in fear. “Run, grab your things,” he had said, “We must leave immediately.” He heard his father’s words and ran to his room, grabbing clothes and stuffing them in a small backpack that he had used for school. Everything else, he knew, had to be left behind, for his safety. He may have been young, but he was still smart, and he knew that the political turmoil was about to erupt into all-out war. He heard his father shout down the hall and, zipping his backpack, flung the door open.

His mother, father and sister ran to the car and began driving south, to the airport. Apparently, his father had a contact in the airline, and he could get them out of the country. But when they arrived at the airport, the Yugoslav National Army had already seized it. His father tried to gain entry, pleading with the army men, but they merely dragged him out of the car, along with his mother, his sister, and him, and lined them up against the wall of the entrance to the airport. Without a sound, the army men had shot three bullets – incredibly loud too – killing his family.

He could only look on as the army man lifted the gun again, pointing toward him, without so much as a grimace or a smirk of satisfaction on his face. Just a quiet, “I’m doing my job” attitude showed on his face. He knew that he had to do something quick, lest he end up like his family, so he ran. The army man shot after him, but he was too quick, weaving through parked cars as he ran away from that scene of horror.

How could they do that to my family? He thought wildly, the blood pounding in his ears as the adrenaline filled him, making him run even faster. How could they just shoot them like that? The tears were hot on his face, but he continued to run, even after his breath had left him and he was gasping for air, his legs burning from the continued torture he was giving them. He had run into the heart of downtown Sarajevo, where he could hear gunfire and loud explosions and could see people running, like he was, desperately trying to flee the city. The chaos was hard to handle, the tanks rumbling along side streets and the sounds of gunshots still filling his ears.

He continued to run, not stopping for anything, until he reached the west end of the city, where the enemy wasn’t patrolling as of yet.

A bang at the door brought him back to his senses. The beauty of his room, and the horror of those memories, left his mind quickly as his flight responses kicked in. He scrambled around frantically, looking, seeking, pleading with the lord above to find him a place to hide, away from these invaders. He could hear them shouting beyond the door, that beautiful, thick oak door, and in his small, cramped room could not bear to run for another moment.

There is nothing left for me here, he thought. There is nothing that I can do, nothing I can say, to bring my family back. I’ve been running for so long, so long! From the police, from the army, from the weapons that they use and the poisons that they drop, I run from it all. I cannot sleep, I cannot eat, my mind is full with horrors and atrocities that I cannot bear repeating! Why can I not just die?

His bed was warm when he sat down, his pillow, though covered with rubble, still holding that warmth that it had when he had last slept on it all those months ago. The dreams came flooding back to him, first of Marla, the American journalist who had sheltered him at the bakery, then of Dianna, the Catholic nun who had been killed by a mortar round.

They had been traveling together, trying to cross the public square and get back to their refuge at the bakery. They had rescued Sister Dianna on that day as well, though the life they had rescued had not lasted too much longer. Marla was leading them through a small alley which opened onto the square, and on the opposite side he could see the bakery that had been their home for the past month. They had waited for the third patrol (in reality, the same patrol that had almost caught them an hour earlier) to pass, and when it did they bolted.

But for the luck they had, it was amazing they had lived so long. The daily mortar barrage had started back up, and Dianna was hit by shrapnel from a car that had exploded. Marla had been struck too, in the leg, and was losing blood quickly. Without thinking, the boy (who knew Sister Dianna was already dead) ran to his companion, shouting for help.

He was frantically waving his arms, searching with panic for someone to help. He saw a few people – mostly refugees – turn away in their windows, afraid of the mortar blasts, and the boy was afraid that no one would come to help them. After what seemed like an eternity of shouting, help finally came, but it was the wrong help; it was the enemy.

He saw them before they could open fire; he quickly got up and ran – ran into the nearest building, where he flew down the corrugated hallways and corrupted stairwells of the apartment complex, coming at last to a door. He flung it open and ran inside, shutting it behind him, and ran inside another room which he quickly shut the door to as well. And as he looked up, he could see his old room, so long gone, with a gaping hole above the bed and rubble shattering everything he had left behind.

He had wept, that was for sure, but he had not moved from his seat against the door. Surely the patrols were out looking for him, as they always were, and even as a fugitive he could not believe that they would kill him. But always the thoughts of his family came floating into his mind, and he could not remember them as well as he could the day before; they had taken even his memories.

He lay down, then, on his rubble-strewn bed, and dreamt of his family, playing a board game together, laughing and smiling. He could see his mother baking her famous cookies, his father reading the paper and pretending to be interested in the game. His sister was making fun of him for throwing the dice funny, but he didn’t mind; it was enough to be there, with his family, with their shrinking faces and their not-so-familiar smiles and their odd new home; all he knew was that he was home.