painted white, sarajevo

XVI

September 30th, 1993.

People have started to use the tunnel more and more now. It's dangerous, crazily so, but some people are so drawn to freedom that they're stumbling in blindly, without a look towards the light that pulses, dull, at the end of the tunnel.

Or is there no light? Is there only a hole created by delusions? Will we be shot on sight? There's so many things we can't count on any more—chances of survival, included.

I, for one, today, walked around with the idea of merely looking forward until this siege ends. Until the darkness that presses down upon us retreats.

I'm walking down one of the city's streets, hugging the wall for a false sense of safety, to avoid the future of where I lie dead on the ground. There's a man, hunched up and trembling with his thin frame pressed to the wall.

While I am not one with a complete heart of gold, I still have one that beat for something other than just myself.

I kneel beside the man, pressing a hand against his frail shoulder. Glassy eyes, polished with the glaze of marble, raise to focus on mine for a moment. I hesitate, one hand coming to rest upon the fabric of the handmade bag for my newspapers Vita had made for me long ago, before this all started.

I was supposed to propose to her. I was supposed to propose to her in a city of peace and love, in a city of quiet, not a city surrounded by hatred.

Underneath my hand, the man trembles. Bags are obvious underneath his eyes, sunken and deep.

"Are you okay?" I ask softly, my voice barely audible to my own ears.

He stutters out a reply that is littered with shudders and tremors. It strikes me how badly his frame is shaking—a leaf swept up in the wind.

Digging my hand into a bag, I don't hesitate to press two layers of newspapers into his hands. After that, I peel off my outer shirt, left shaking only lightly. But this man, his clothes ragged and riddled with holes, needs it more than I do.

His mouth parts, eyes widening at the sight of the offered clothing.

"Take it," I say, letting it drift towards him.

"N—No, sir. I can't accept this," he whispers weakly.

I shake my head, refusing. "There is a time where one needs it more than another. Take it, bundle yourself up. A dead man without clothing is less useful than a man, alive and breathing, wearing clothes given by another."

Thin fingers stretch towards the bundle I hold within my hands, the one taking the paper to press it against his skin.

"In this world we are currently restrained in, we are all equal, despite former status," I say, then turn on a crisp heel to leave the man, despite the cold that embraces me.

"Stay alive. Our numbers are all we still have."

The night after that is blurry and touched with the fingers of cold. But I sit still with a nightmare in my head of what's to come—here, I have no purpose if I'm an individual. Our only choice is to unite. We fight back, together, somehow, despite the hopelessness of the cause. We grow stronger as days melt into one.

Perhaps we'll wait.

- Safet Kapić

Elias stared at the latest submission from Ada, the last few words of Safet's tale with the man standing out in his mind.

Our numbers are all we have. There is a time where one needs it more than another.

"There is a time where one needs it more than another," he mused. "Can't this be applied to real life?"

Letting his gaze sweep over the words again and again. In a time of unrest and danger, they only had each other.

Now they had to be saved once again—this city, Safet's tale and memory. Sarajevo. Their city.

October 31st, 1993.

I know it's been quite a while.

The months, just like the days, are starting to blend together. I can't tell the difference between September and October, nor the sixteenth or the seventeenth.

Each day is a repeat, a cycle, a tale of destruction, loss, agony, and struggle.

Sarajevo's struggle. Is that a repetitive topic? I think it is. It is because it's so important. It is because I live through it every day.

But, nonetheless, things are hard. The days are starting to stretch into the tendrils of cold, but that doesn't stop our fight.

I can't find time to write that often anymore. It's why my diary entries are so stagnant. Alongside the cold, I have to take care of others. I still have to work.

I have to take care of others. I have to.

- Safet Kapić

Gnawing at the tip of his fingernail, Elias let his eyes run over the tale again.

He has to take care of others?

Safet had always come off to him as a loner, a person who did what he had to do, not a person know for helping others. But seeing how he acted with the man, he doubted that Safet was lying. After reading the latest entry, Elias started to form a new picture of him.

Safet probably felt a connection to all those in the city, to everyone who was in the same situation as him, to everyone in the city that felt scared, everyone in the city going strong but fearful for their life.

Spinning his chair around, Elias scooted on over to where a piece of paper lay abandoned on his desk, drawing six squares across the paper.

Sarajevo's/Wistinburg's grounds were best suited for small shops, and Elias had seen more than one antique shops along the street.

Shoes, handmade clothes... Watches, maybe?

He couldn't just use Safet's story as a sob story; he needed to use it wisely. It was the tale of Sarajevo: what had happened, and what was still able to come to life.

The truth, the Great Recreational Age. With that, he started writing.

Copper carvings, maybe?

Definitely something antique-based. Hourglasses, jewelry, maybe semi-precious and precious stones.

Small cities do good on docks, I think, and Wistinburg just about reaches the shore. A big plus. Ships?? Transporting goods??

"Leather goods," he murmured, writing down the word. "Knitting would also work."

He recalled the collection of worn items from the shop he had gotten the diary from— there was quite a bit of metal items there, too. There was the wood-carved table, too, wasn't there?

Wistinburg/Sarajevo could get colossal boost if their wood carvings sold. Charms, engravings, everything and anything. If they would make trinkets, too, that would easily appeal to teenagers.

A plan started to trickle through his mind, details piling up here and there.

Every city has a purpose. Every person has a purpose. Maybe they just haven't found it yet. It's the same for cities.