By Hariz Halilovich

 MELBOURNE - January, 1993. Bosnia, the most dangerous place in the world. Killing fields. Concentration camps.

It must be under minus ten degrees tonight. The winters are cold and the summers warm in this small country in South East Europe.

In this city occupied by the worst representatives of an ethnic group, there is a young man with a wrong name, weak and tired.

Tomorrow is his twenty-third birthday. Fear and uncertainty have penetrated into the very extremities of his body. He tries to bring pleasant memories from the past into his mind. He tries to escape in his imagination, to meet his friends and relatives again after 311 days. But fear and the coldness of reality are too strong, and they hold him back. He is waiting for his executioners to take him away to a concentration camp or to end his life here, in this dark corner, in the wrong town, for a no reason.

 He has been waiting for them for several nights and he knows it is only a matter of time. They haven’t forgotten him and they will come. Maybe tonight? He is sure they will come tonight. Tomorrow is his birthday. Will it be his last day too? He doesn’t have a chance. Every road is closed. There is no way out and tomorrow will not bring any good news. All the good days have passed - the sunshine, the smell of her hair. He misses her very much tonight, but his only happiness is her absence from this forsaken place. What a relief that she is not here. She doesn’t need ever to see this distress and misery or to feel the fear. If he survives and finds her again somewhere one day, he will never tell her about this night or other nights. She must be spared.

Gunshots rend the cold night. They come closer. He is so happy that she is safe, far away in a foreign country. Happiness replaces fear, they blend and become one. It is impossible to imagine a picture of the future. The past is more vivid, memories are woken and bring the only light into this darkness. Only a few years ago, people were friendly and happy and they didn’t hate each other. War broke out and he couldn’t believe what he saw. People shot for no reason, or only because their names revealed their ethnic identity. Their own names became their enemies, their death sentence. His world was destroyed by some mad men and he couldn’t understand how it could have happened. But he had stopped thinking of reasons, of the point for these brutalities months ago, and tried only to survive this moment.

Sometimes he thinks of giving up. To live is to prolong the agony. He isn’t dead yet, but these 311 days and nights cannot be counted as a part of his life. They are an endless torture, a manhunt, and if this comes to an end, it will be to produce one more dead body.

He pursues the negative thoughts of his mind. He wants to believe that there must be a hidden way to survive. Patience. He remembers an old proverb: Patient – saved. Everything comes to those who wait. And he is waiting.

A cold wind stirs his mind and brings a smell of danger and reality. Reality is only what exists. The past is over and the future is just a vague fiction.

‘You are surrounded! Put your hands up and come out! Anyone who tries to escape will be shot! Move, move…’

At this moment, the present stops. He can’t feel, he can’t think. His farewell won’t be witnessed by anyone he loved. Goodbye my love. This night has never existed for us. Keep the secrets of our moments… In the lightening sky outside, he can see the many barrels pointed at his chest.

Far from Europe and from the atrocities of the war, it is a hot January night in Australia. A man hovers between reality and slumber. Tomorrow is his birthday. The night many years ago blends with this night, as he carries the nightmare, his painful secret, with him through the years. There is fear, sadness, anger and a big, deep hole somewhere in his soul and these feelings don’t go away.

A man is taken away. Some others are taken with him, soldiers and guns surround them. A soldier beats a prisoner. Another man weeps. Then a shot and a body falls to the ground. The prisoners are forced onto a truck and are driven away by their kidnappers. An old man prays silently. The truck stops in a factory that became a concentration camp at the beginning of the war. There is a high fence around the camp. The prisoners must lie on the ground and then are kicked and beaten by the soldiers. The ground is cold, wet and dirty. His body squashed by others. The air is thick and heavy and he tries to keep his stomach under control. The taste of his own blood fills his mouth. It is dawn. A long night is over and a long nightmare is just beginning.

A cry. Someone is crying. He is hot, sweaty and confused. Which night is it? Where is he?

A child is crying. Suddenly, he realises it is his little son. He is nearly two years old and his mother is still asleep. He goes quietly into the other room, his heart is beating wildly as he hugs the child and calms him: ‘Everything is OK my boy. It’s over now. It was only a bad dream.’