My brother Amel bought this for 10 euros. I think it was late 1994. Now it’s so cheap and irrelevant, but during the war, it was a fortune. He bought it from a friend whose father was away. I don’t think he expected his father to return. War kills hope. You prioritize the present. Maybe it did not suit a sixteen-year-old to wear this, but hey, it’s Seiko 5. A classic. Our father had the same and it was cool to copy your dad, your role model. You feel all grown up.

When my brother was killed, 3 May 1995, this watch was the first thing I inherited from him. Forcibly inherited. I don’t know why and when but I took it from him, it was on my wrist before we even reached the hospital. There was this fear that someone will take it away from him, that I will be deprived of it. All stained in blood. His watch, my watch. It was my time to copy my role model and I proudly did. I was twelve and had this big watch on my wrist. The strap was loose but I wore it. I didn’t take it off my wrist for quite some time. Suddenly I was grown up but not because of the watch, it was because a Serbian sniper had killed him in front of me and I no longer had a childhood. I simply didn’t have the luxury to be a child.

Today I wear a different Seiko watch.
That tells of the memories, recollections, trauma and how we want to remember our loved ones.
He is there with me, every pulse, every tick of a second.

As for our watch, nobody is wearing it.

Not anymore.

Now it’s only a souvenir.

A memory.

Hidden.

Timeless.

* this watch is part of the virtual exhibition ‘Remnants of Genocide‘: www.srebrenicaexhibition.com

Draga sjećanja.

Isplivaju na površinu.

Momenti dragi, momenti zadnji, paradoksalno se pretapaju između košmara i lijepog sna.

Na trenutak se zamislim, proživim to opet, ratni doručak tog kobnog trećeg maja ‘95.

Sjećam se i stare zagorene tave, teška, ogromna.

Moglo bi u nju stati bar desetero jaja, a opet ne sjećam se da smo više od dva iz nje pojeli.

Tekstura brašna, ona gruboča pod jezikom, neugodno hrapava.

Brašno se koristilo kao alternativa za manjak sira i nedostatak jaja.

Bilo ga je, naravno, više nego sira. Sira osim fete nije bilo.

A danas, četiri vrste sira i još dodatno na kraju preko narendan dimljeni sir.

Jaja, mlijeko, sir, čisti luksuz.

Nostalgija, rodi se neka dragost u srcu.

Duša zatreperi.

Često mamu zamolim da je opet napravi.

Baš takvu, onu bez imalo kvalitetnog sira.

Uzalud.

Nije da je ne razumijem.

Ne bih ni ja na njenom mjestu.

Jad i bijeda rata.

Mora.

Smrkne joj se.

Vrati je u taj pakao preživljavanja.

Odustao sam.

Više i ne pitam i ne spominjem.

Samo zamišljam.

Meni je to uspomena, a njoj trauma.

Naš posljednji zajednički obrok.

Topa.

Ona ratna.

On the way back home, it was the other way around.

We would then walk in front of him.

I will never forget his words, “I am the one who should get killed first.”

Let it be in order he would say.

Normal human instinct, wishing offspring could outlive you.

Basic survival thinking.

When his son, my brother, was killed,

he was the one who laid his body to the eternal resting place.

It still echoes, “I pray that you bury me when the day comes.

No father, no parent, should bury its own child.

I did it once and I wouldn’t last for the second time.”

My late father passed away on the 23rd of November 2016.

On this day, three years ago, I laid him down to his grave.

It was in order, as he wished.

His legacy lives on.

I am.

Father.

People use it when calling their brothers, cousins, close friends,
sometimes even random strangers in the street, coffee shops, airports.

Hey bro.

Brother.

I get to be called ‘bro’ a lot.

It doesn’t mater when or who does it
I automatically have a slight discomfort in my stomach.

A pinch in the belly.

Not necessarily negative one, just a strange feeling.

That’s something I can’t help but feel.

I keep quiet, don’t tell them of my mild soulache.

My surroundings don’t know this so they keep doing it.

Those emotions are not visible to them.

I’ve never called anybody that,
I’ve never said bro to someone.

Can’t reply the same way, I can’t utter those words.

Just can’t.

That’s just a phrase or common greeting but for me it’s more than that,
it’s a privilege reserved for someone who will never call me that.

Ever again.

Bro.

coldness

chilling air with dimmed lights

silence, random distant whispers

sharp smell of steel

sound of steps over aged white floor tiles

screaming heavy old metal doors

frosted hair, like a morning icy grass

colorless, lifeless skin

lips were grey, semi-open

I think I kissed him last time

somehow that piece of my memory is blurred

wish I could restore that part of our goodbye

maybe I just want to believe I did

can’t remember it though

I do recall his eternal beauty

frozen in time

forever

beauty

One small detail is enough, a word, a blink of an eye.

A tiny spark igniting series of novels written in the past.

I imagine things we never had time to fulfill.

As if somebody is looking, who knows I’m lying to myself.

I fantasize whatever I wish.

Daydreaming. 

Is it because I miss him?

That time we never spent.

Memories.

Sometimes rain of flashbacks.

Pouring.

No way out for rising water levels.

Flood of thoughts.

Rushing through my head, flickering, unconnected.

Sporadically they look like irrelevant
segments of my life, little particles.

They seem to be time clashing with each other.

Sharp pieces of a broken mirror.

Reflections of another me.

Every bit on its own is part of a puzzle that makes a collage
of scents, sounds, touches, giving me my former life.

How to catch that vision and force it to be part of my being.

When the world is a burden.

When longing.

To have a solace in it.

Maybe I’m creating illusions for myself, dreaming,
imagining, hoping to form his character.

To reverse the irreversible.

Today.

I make memories for my kids,
making myself alive through their plays.

Again, breathing a past life.

He is alive.

I am alive.

I can’t help but take notice of that year whenever I see it, wherever I see it 

But especially when I hear it.

Every time I meet people and we get into a conversation about age, I tell them mine and they mention theirs, I quickly do the math in my head.

Trying to see if they fall under that dear category of people, if they meet the criteria to be treated with special care.

Nineteen seventy-nine.

I stop.

Stop breathing.

Impact is bigger if they just say it without me calculating.

I have a short circuit in my heart.

Brain starts imagining my brother being that age.

Forcing my neurons to form the image of him.

Flickering some unreal photos of me still being younger than him even though I can’t project that character.

I check the wrinkles around their eyes.

Analyze their every move, gesture, smile, height.

Haircut.

Grey hairs. 

I wonder about his looks.

Their matured expressions, colour of their voice, huskiness, would he sound like them, I try to hear him.

Even when I was 16, I observed people who were 20, looking for him.

Forty, he would have been forty this year.

Wishful thinking never stops.

It’s there, all the time, in the back of my head.

What would his job be , would he be married, kids?

I can’t escape those thoughts, it’s stronger than me.

Seemingly just a number.

But not any number.

Not to me.

‘79.