Tales from the Island of Serendip 4 4

[mrmyst]

I, for one, can't wait. I love this thread Michael.

[VintageComics]

Amazing read.

 

It goes without saying what a useless tragedy the entire war was. I remember one of my co-worker friends (he is Czech) shouting at me when it all started...he kept repeating "I can't believe they're dropping bombs on Europe again!" as he shook his head in disbelief.

 

I've heard some horror stories from family members during the time of the fighting and I happened to visit the country shortly after it stopped. It was surreal to walk around and see people going about their daily lives among all the rubble that just never seemed to get cleaned up.

 

 

[Flex Mentallo]

Amazing read.

 

It goes without saying what a useless tragedy the entire war was. I remember one of my co-worker friends (he is Czech) shouting at me when it all started...he kept repeating "I can't believe they're dropping bombs on Europe again!" as he shook his head in disbelief.

 

I've heard some horror stories from family members during the time of the fighting and I happened to visit the country shortly after it stopped. It was surreal to walk around and see people going about their daily lives among all the rubble that just never seemed to get cleaned up.

 

 

Thanks Roy - given the depth of the boards I expected to find one or two others who had direct experience of the war.

 

I have a couple more chapters to post and will be back later today with the next one.

 

 

[Flex Mentallo]

I, for one, can't wait. I love this thread Michael.

 

I'm grateful for the positive feedback! I know many boardies are reading, but not many commenting so far, though I've had a fair number of pm's.

[Flex Mentallo]

Will our hapless hero wind up in a pile of rubble at the bottom of a 50 foot drop?

Or will he save the cat from it's perilous perch, and himself in the process?

Stay tuned boys and girls. Same bat-time, same bat-channel.

 

I can remember watching a Batman serial at the old Gaumont Cinema every Saturday morning. And there was an episode where the Bat mobile goes over a cliff taking the duo to certain death. I waited a full week for the denouement - only to find that the cliffhanger ending had been written out and the car never actually went over the cliff at all!

 

I promise that doesn't happen here.

 

More later!

[Flex Mentallo]

...remember the first scenes in Vertigo?

 

Somehow I managed to cling on, and so did the cat. But then to my horror, the cat started to back away, hissing and spitting as it did so. It backed away to the very corner of the roof and looked down.

 

 

Then looked back at me, hesitated in a very human fashion before suddenly launching itself at my throat, where it clung for dear life, claws out, digging into my neck.

 

It was all I could do not to tear the damn thing off!

 

Stretching up, I was just able to deliver it into Nigel's outreaching arms. He in turn handed the cat behind him to Bobby. Then he reached out again, looked squarely at me and said, "Okay, jump". Had he not caught my hand I would have made a very messy swan dive into the waiting car park.

 

Only afterwards, when I looked at Bobby's chalk white face, did I pause to think what I had just done. But refugees do that, don’t they?

 

 

We never told Misha what had happened.

 

[Flex Mentallo]

In the following days she became our guide to Sarajevo.

 

 

One day, on a bridge crossing the river, she suddenly stopped and said, “I was crossing this bridge one freezing cold day last winter. Suddenly I heard the sharp crack of a rifle, and a bullet hit the bridge just in front of my feet. I knew I was done for. So I simply stood there, unable to move, and waited for the one that would kill me. The next bullet hit the bridge behind me. I waited but nothing else happened, so eventually I started walking again. The sniper was just playing with my nerves.”

Others had not been as lucky.

 

[Flex Mentallo]

Romeo and Juliet in Sarajevo

 

 

 

"Excessive Bosnian Army bureaucracy had kept us away from the front line. After lunch, I hooked up with Japanese freelance TV cameraman and a Washington Times journalist. Together, we cruised the city looking for something different. Everywhere we went in Sarajevo ended in frustration. Before calling it a day, however, we decided to check out the front-line around the Vrbanja Bridge. There was a small battle going on, with Bosnian forces firing at a group of Serb soldiers near the ruins of the Union Invest building. Suddenly, a Serb tank appeared 200 meters in front of us, and fired over our heads. We scrambled to the next apartment house, and found ourselves holed up with a group of Bosnian soldiers. One of the soldiers yelled at me to look out the window, pointing at a young girl and boy running on the far side of the bridge. I grabbed my camera, but it was too late. The boy and girl were shot down. Bosnian Muslim Admira Ismić and Bosnian Serb Boško Brkić, both 25. Their bodies remained in the no-man’s land for nearly four days before being recovered.”

Mark H. Milstein

 

 

 

 

The bodies of Admira and Boško lay on the bridge for days since no one dared to enter Sniper Alley and recover them. A documentary was later made about their deaths entitled Romeo and Juliet in Sarajevo

 

[VintageComics]

I'm grateful for the positive feedback! I know many boardies are reading, but not many commenting so far, though I've had a fair number of pm's.

 

Don't take people's silence as disapproval. It's more like astonishment.

 

This thread is awesome and will go down in history as one of this boards greatest reads.

 

(thumbs u

[Flex Mentallo]

I'm grateful for the positive feedback! I know many boardies are reading, but not many commenting so far, though I've had a fair number of pm's.

 

Don't take people's silence as disapproval. It's more like astonishment.

 

This thread is awesome and will go down in history as one of this boards greatest reads.

 

(thumbs u

 

Thanks Roy - I thought long and hard about this before deciding to post!

 

Here is the next chapter...

[Flex Mentallo]

Walking across this other bridge with Misha, I suddenly recognised BBC War Correspondent, Kate Adie crossing the bridge in the other direction.

 

 

 

She took me for a local, and struck up a conversation. “The war may end”, she told me, “but the hatred never will.”

 

 

[Flex Mentallo]

A little while later, we entered the ruins of the famous Bosnian Library that had been shelled by the Serbs, all its many treasures burned.

 

 

 

[Flex Mentallo]

 

 

[Flex Mentallo]

Edited January 30, 2013 by alanna

[Flex Mentallo]

[Flex Mentallo]

[Flex Mentallo]

Bizarrely, the British Ambassador was in there with a film crew, making a documentary to launch an appeal to restore it. This has now been achieved, though I believe the funds came from Turkey, not the UK.

 

 

[Flex Mentallo]

[VintageComics]

 

She took me for a local, and struck up a conversation. “The war may end”, she told me, “but the hatred never will.”

 

 

She's right about that. It runs deep. Even here in North America, parents still teach their kids to dislike "the other side" unfortunately.

 

 

[Flex Mentallo]

We went into the university, hung out with the students. They showed us a sculpture they had suspended over the river at the height of the shelling, under intense sniper fire. By some miracle no one was killed on that occasion.