A couple of weeks ago, my twelve-year-old son gave his first statement to the police as a witness. My wife, while driving to pick him up from school, dared to use a horn to warn the driver of the Vespa that he had blocked the intersection. That’s why he followed her to school, stooped next to her, cursed at her, spat in her face through the open window and drove away. All that in front of dozens of children who were leaving the school enjoying the end of classes.
At the same time, merely a hundred meters away, I was at work at the Sarajevo Youth Theater. You know that place where we teach children that justice and good always prevail, that courage, honesty and love pave the road to success, and at the very least that it is not nice to spit on someone.
Furious, the same day I spewed my emotions on Twitter through a thread and in response, received support from known and unknown people, an incredible number of similar experiences and an occasional idiotic comment because …. because Twitter.
The fear came a day later. The fear of potential scenarios that could have happened if the driver of the Vespa had been more nervous, drugged or had a weapon, in short, every possible scenario that the Bosnian imagination calibrated on the “worst case scenario” scenario can conjure. Messages and comments on Twitter continue and I am starting to feel ashamed that now I have now upset or angered other people.
Acceptance came later. Two to three days passed, and we continued business as usual. Twitter community found another topic, life goes on, right?
What remains is filed criminal charge against an unidentified person protocoled and a small trauma that settled comfortably somewhere in the womb, along with similar ones already nested there. They have been lining up regularly for years, in all of us, simmering just enough to fuel the anger, and through some unknown process sometimes turn into chronic diseases and anxiety disorders. Just as we think that there is just no more room for more, a new one comes along and settles comfortably while the gut grows. And hurts.
Now, to quote or not to quote Konstrakta with “And now what?” or to stick to quotes from this side of the Drina River like “Yes, and?” and “So now what”? Either way – obviously nothing. Soldier on, carefully and constantly balancing on a thin thread between madness and serenity, violence and pacifism, desires and reality, with a strong yet false conviction that we are in control of all that simmering rage.
Rage is a nasty son of a bitch. When cramped inside, it hurls outside unstoppably, demands to be rechewed and then spat out, just like with that Vespa driver. Whatever tribe of half human brutes he belongs to, I’m afraid that one of those is lurking in every one of us just waiting for some car horn to wake him up.
To dilute the tension, the unpleasant event from the beginning of the text has no epilogue. Nothing has been resolved regarding the criminal report, but symbolically incident happened within days after one of “our best and brightest” had shown a middle finger to the press. This serendipity reminded me of another middle finger from a couple of years ago, for which a person attached to it was arrested, all because she showed it to another one of “our best and brightest”.
So, when I wonder when will this ticking bomb in our guts finally grow big enough to be delivered into this world through birth of something good, birth of some change, birth of anything really, I am not an optimist.
Quarter of a century of pregnancy, and yet we’re only two fingers dilated.
Sanin Milavić works as an actor at “Sarajevo Youth Theatre “since 2007. Classically trained at the Sarajevo Academy of Performing Arts, he has staged in over 40 roles in all Sarajevo’s mayor repertory theatres, as well as numerous TV and movie productions. Lately he can be seen in theatrical productions such as “Welcome “, “Brave New World “, “What is Europe“and movies “Tabija“, ”Not so Friendly Neighbourhood Affair“ and Oscar nominated movie
“Quo Vadis Aida? “. He is currently residing and working in Sarajevo.
