For a long time now, I have been thinking about telling a story that sleeps restlessly in me to others. I want to clearly state my view of events without wasting time on nonsense, so my narration will be more understandable.

I know that because of my story, which I will lay bare before you, the sky will not darken, the earth will not tremble, nor will any wrath fall from heaven. Based on this, I don't expect some "big" brains to use their little gray cells to decipher the message on these pages. I don't expect anything, and nothing will change except that I may scratch someone's imagination as I was scratched.

There are such things in human life that you search for until you find them, but there are also others that search for you. You neither look for these others nor summon them, at least not consciously, nor do you want them, but they still come, and when they happen, you are no longer the same. Sometimes after them, you can run away with your head no matter how far you can go; if you don't, you have to face them. In both cases, the person changes and is no longer the same.

Since I was born, I lived in an area that, unlike any other place in the world, made it possible to travel to countries with different names without leaving your house. I lived in something that was more or less called Yugoslavia.

This country, full of diversity and intolerance between the nations that made it up, was created on December 1, 1918, after the First World War, when the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy collapsed. The first name it bore was the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, and it was renamed in 1929 to the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.

During the Second World War, on November 29, 1943, it was agreed between six representatives of the majority of nations that lived in that territory that a new state called Democratic Federative Yugoslavia would be formed, which would be composed of six republics: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, and Macedonia. That country was officially formed and recognized on November 29, 1945. It was named the Federative People's Republic of Yugoslavia, which again changed its name in 1963 to the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. This country lasted until 1991, when Slovenia, Croatia, and Macedonia left it, and then in 1992, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The remaining two republics, Serbia and Montenegro, formed the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, which existed until 2003 when Yugoslavia was officially consigned to history. The country bore that name became the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro. For the people who lived in those two republics, it was the seventh name for their country in only 85 years.

Just imagine how many times it was necessary to change various documents and, worst of all, pay for them repeatedly and wait in lines in front of the counter nervous civil servants. But it was not the end either because this last state creation also fell apart on May 21, 2006, when Montenegro left it. With this act, those two previous republics that made up Yugoslavia became independent states with their borders and border services that supervised and controlled the flow of goods and people across them.

Traveling through the territory of the former Yugoslavia, one could get the impression that every house with a yard has a border in front of which you have to wait and show your documents and what you may be carrying or transporting. And it took and looks like it will take more time, patience, nerve control, and money for various taxes.

In the country that was the last to abandon the idea of community and which stood on that idea until everyone left it, in Belgrade, somewhere in the middle of 1997, I met, according to all the laws of mere coincidence, a young man with a rather strange appearance.

I remember that it was when citizens in Serbia took to the streets to protest against the falsified results of the parliamentary elections from the end of the previous year. Presidential elections should also be held. Chaos is on the horizon in Albania due to the combination of banks and politicians defrauding citizens and depositors. The Protocol on Environmental Protection was signed in Kyoto, which reduces the production of carbon dioxide and other harmful gases. One hundred forty-one countries agreed to the Protocol, but not the USA as the largest producer of toxic gases. And Hong Kong, after 156 years of British colonial administration, was taken over by China. In Britain, Labor comes to power after 18 years of conservative rule. There are parliamentary elections in France. The British Princess Diana died in a car accident, the president fled from Zaire before the rebels, and there was a military coup in Sierra Leone. There are bombings in Cambodia, an offensive against the Kurds in Turkey, an earthquake in central Italy and Iran, in Bangladesh, people are losing their lives to cyclones, and in Belgrade, bullets from an ambush.

Murders follow one after the other. Centa was killed in an ambush with an automatic weapon at the writers' club, Tref with a pistol at the Sava Center, Badza with a machine gun with a silencer in a restaurant, Vule with a sniper rifle in front of his discotheque, and Kundak with a pistol at "Beopetrol" of which he was the director. Similar fates befell many other but less well-known people.

The war was heating up in Kosovo, and for Croatia, Bosnia, and Herzegovina, the second year of peace was going on after the wars ended, in which the nationalist options won and rode to power based on their victories.

The moral collapse was still in full swing. Pickpockets with bags of stolen money swarmed the businesses, preparing to pick them up and drive the workers out onto the street. Moral principles have long since given way to other interests. Fake invalids, fake doctors, fake diplomas, fake money, fake biographies, fake...

It has almost become acceptable to kill oneself and not be held accountable. With the introduction of democracy, a good number of people thought that everything that was forbidden before was now allowed. The state apparatus did not perform what it was meant to do, and the judiciary, the police, and the educational segment stood out in particular.

Lies, fraud, corruption, nepotism, crime...

Confusion, pathlessness, and hopelessness prevailed. In that desperation, people began to turn to God more often than before. Was it the appearance of a mass psychological crisis or a religious revival? It seemed to me that it was about this first one.

Human faith has always been something fascinating. This time that faith manifested as faith that after years of abstinence, God could suddenly hear their prayer and answer it. Religion became a sign of national belonging, and the loser in wars was a man, so he suffered according to his loss.

The cities were filled with people with a rural mentality, who were disoriented and misguided and in constant fear of the doom constantly lurking in politicians' mouths. Household budgets and food pantries were filled with witches, dragons, and evil elves.

The new model of the organization of the state and life advocated a development that enables wealth and dominance for some and poverty and subjugation for others.

Three existing truths could be heard everywhere: Serbian, Croatian, and Muslim, and apparently, an Albanian one was also forming.

A good part of the population of the newly formed Balkan states blindly trusted only "their" televisions and the authorities that appeared there. Such people have become slaves to manipulation because of politics and televised images and words, and their minds have been gripped by hostility and apathy. They have lost the capacity for love. That spark of curiosity and desire to create was killed in them, so as such, they could not possibly be a link in the chain of development and progress. And it was impossible to live in the past.

It has always been and will be in the future: when ignorance celebrates victory, people are afraid of the truth and selflessly give their hearts to all kinds of nonsense, and even witchcraft, divination, and prophecies. The most zealous are those who are unhealthily thin and worn out to the point of physical ruin, uncombed and unshaven, have bloodshot eyes cloudy, and regularly reek of sweat. Everything is for salvation because their reason for living becomes life itself. And it was interesting that those who could be said to have a complete and good life often squander their lives, while those whose life is empty and hanging in the balance do not give it up quickly.

People being people could only appreciate the importance of something once they achieved that as a goal or when they realized that what they hoped for was lost and failed forever.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

But let's get back to my new acquaintance. I wouldn't want to drown you now with how I met him and what a coincidence it was because it's not interesting. Although I am aware that skipping the explanation about our meeting could later cause some conclusions and possibly prejudices on your part, I will still take the risk and skip it because I want, as quickly as possible, to move on to why I am mentioning him to you.

That man, of extraordinary intelligence and extraordinary experience, was called Arsen. He was tall, skinny, and slightly stooped in the shoulders. It was as if he was carrying the burden of some enormous misfortune and shame.

I remember my thoughts when I saw him like that. I was afraid that I, too, carry an aura of dishonor that I can't see myself, but others can see. And the very next moment, I felt guilty for thinking that because, in my past, I did not have any significant dishonorable actions and actions. Of course, I was imperfect like most people, which I was, in fact, proud of. Such thoughts quickly gave me the right to be wrong with conclusions based on Arsen's appearance and my impressions. For those few moments, I rarely forced a smile. Anyone who knew me could easily conclude that something I had just done made me uncomfortable. When a man quietly farts in a company, it starts to stink, and he pretends not to know who did it.

Arsen had pale skin like a man who lives underground where sunlight does not reach. And that skin also looked like it was extremely delicate, and he also had gentle, almost childlike features on his pale, worried, somewhat worn, and sad face. From that face shone, standing out, fresh, bright blue eyes and slightly pressed red lips from which a soft voice came out. When his thoughts were particularly engrossed in something, those lips shrunk even more and seemed to disappear from his face. The movements of his hands and legs and his body, in general, were slightly different from the usual movements of a man, as if something was out of sync. But let's leave that for now.

Already at that first meeting, he began to confide in me. He said something I knew myself. He emphasized that we live in a world of worship of money and profit, a world of evil, a world of the cult of violence, and a world with principles in which the rich are allowed to do everything. Then he added that in our world, the essential guides are force, greed, egoism, and the pursuit of pleasures. Instead of spiritual life, a man was given a choice among many material things most harmful to human nature.

He also said that he was a living example of that, and what he meant by that, I still didn't understand at the time.

I remember that the weather was oppressive and sultry under a sky slowly covered by clouds. The leaves on the branches of the city trees played in the warm breeze that did not bring any refreshment. People complained to each other about the unbearable heat.

Let me say something more about myself. I arrived in Belgrade against my will in August 1995, along with many other people with a similar fate. Of those who set out on that path, a good number suffered and died for, I guess, higher goals.

I cannot prove it, but I have many reasons to believe that my forced trip was agreed in advance between the heads of the Serbian and Croatian sides. Many from the top of the army, government, and business people took their families and valuables to Serbia days before the trip began. They must have known something!

In the area of Lapac and Martinbrod, a macadam road was even widened and paved, which was later marked on the air by Croatian radio as "free," and it was on this road that the entire Serbian population of Lika and northern Dalmatia crossed from Croatia to Bosnia and Herzegovina. That says something too!?

Due to suffering, people have always tried with all their might to understand the justice according to which someone dies, and someone lives. No one has yet managed to figure out that rule. It often seemed there needed more laws and justice, or what people know as justice, during their lifetime.

All of us participants in the war and those higher goals were, today I know it, in the deep darkness of ignorance like rats when they die in the name of knowledge and science without knowing why the misfortune befell them. It is to be hoped that it was so necessary and that we should not have known anything about it, as we did not. We were slightly different from laboratory mice, which could have been more helpful. We differed in a little bit of reason that we possessed, but a little bit, so being petite gave the right to someone who had more to treat us the way he did.

It had been a long time since I heard reports from the front, and I still didn't believe they weren't there. For years I lived with them like bread and water. Sometimes a feeling came over me due to the lack of those war reports.

And I also remember those first days after arriving; I couldn't manage. It was illogical for me, after so many years of carrying a gun and daily concern only for my own life and the lives of the people around me, to get used to the fact that I should now put it aside and that the energy I was spending on it should be directed to some activity with which I would earn money with which I will repurchase food and pay for a roof over my head. That was incomprehensible to me because I didn't need such a thing for my existence in recent years.

During those years of war, food was not chosen, and it was not even necessary that it be regular, and a roof over one's head was not in question since it was not strange to sleep in the open on top of a hill or in an excavated canal that we dug, thinking that it was our protection, not that which turned out to be a sewer that sent us away from where we loved and wanted to be.

It wasn't easy to rationally instill in yourself that something you didn't need at all until yesterday, now you need, which is necessary for survival. It takes time to understand everyday life outside of war. Some people adapt faster and understand their place and role, and some people have a tough time with it, up to those who cannot understand reality without war.

That is why I have often thought that it would be helpful for both those who were not in the war and those who were to prepare after the war in some specific and designed way for the reality of life in a human community that is not infected by war. Those thoughts of mine for the region where I was born were a pure utopia, and people were left to their own devices, so whoever manages, well, and whoever doesn't, it's hard for him and those around him.

If you were born into a world without meaning and reason, you should try to find some meaning and justification to give life reasons as you know and know how to live.

For me, it was a time when I was still intensely preoccupied with thoughts about the war. For me, war was a symbol and reality of the origin of death, the negation of life, the rape of civilization, hope, and mercy. I thought the war was a stupid cry of hatred, fear, and celebration of death. In war, horror or remorse are rare because people primarily lack heart and soul, conscience, and mercy.

I wondered if I was like that myself. Because, in the war, it's as if some fire is ignited in the brain, which quickly swallows up everything known about love between people. A reasonable man becomes unreasonable because he lives in a world of unreasonableness.

That is precisely why I often sat alone in the dark, tormented by loneliness and despair. I unsuccessfully and for a long time tried to free myself from those feelings and banish them from my mind.

Those two years of my stay in Belgrade introduced me to the knowledge of life in which you live alone in a crowd. To be protected from emotional pain, I avoided socializing and everything that reminded me of love. It would be better to say that I avoided everything that makes up normal human relationships. I was almost at the very discovery of how it is possible to survive in solitude. It sounds terrible, but it's true.

I saw neighbors who lived door to door for ten years without knowing each other, which spoke of the enormous alienation and loneliness to which man fell prey. It was definitely not like that earlier in my life, and I used to miss that.

Now I am not thinking about that ancient intimacy that existed between people in ancient times, when, as in Ephesus, fifty people sat next to each other in the holes in the marble of the public toilet. At the same time, a small orchestra played to muffle the sounds that arose during defecation. I didn't miss that closeness between the people at the pits, which were not separated from each other by anything, but the one between that and today, I did.

I missed just talking to someone honestly and without ulterior motives. It's possible that it showed on my face, which is why Arsen approached me.

I think it could be recognized that I am a good listener—someone who is eternally pensive in an endless search for answers.

By the way, for as long as I can remember, as it is usually said, I have been searching for answers to various questions, which were, in fact, eternal questions of humanity to which no one has ever answered. And regardless of the fact that there was no answer even for me, I still wondered and thought about human purpose and other similar questions to which there was no demonstrable answer. There are many, perhaps too many, things in a person's life that a person does not understand. When a person starts to think about them, realizing how much there is, he admits how terrible it is. I don't want to scare anyone with that, but it's terrifying ignorance.

That persistent thinking and creating various theories and matrices for the eventual resolution of a question fed me during my stay in Belgrade.

Or, to be more precise, some people recommended me to other people who were engaged in polling. They first questioned me and tested me in some of their ways, so I became helpful to them as far as I know. After that, they often came to me with a particular request, for which I should prepare a set of questions, the answers to which would make clear the opinion of the interviewed individuals who would participate in some surveys.

That way, to my great satisfaction, I could continue thinking and searching for answers, and at the same time, I had enough time to do something for which I was paid enough to support myself. That part of my life was not so bad, so unlike many, I was lucky in that segment.

Well, if all the other essential parts of life were like that, there would be no end to my happiness.

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