Petar

Petar stumbled in the night, but regained his footing quickly. It was so dark. He thought about the horrors he had seen that day. Every day there were enough new ones that the ones in the past faded into a blur of nightmares.  But then he thought of his family.

He sat down on a rock by the edge of the path, easing his aching body down slowly. He had been running from everything. He was a deserter, and in general, deserters were just as hunted as the enemy. He knew his family would be distressed and disapproving, but his mind was made up. Ever since looking through that scope at the bodies of the dead in the market, he had been having a growing uneasiness inside. Hearing the outcome of each attack brought on horrible anxiety. Was he right? Were they right? His comrades didn’t enjoy killing, but somehow everyone had become desensitized to the horrors of death. They believed what they were doing was right, and so carried out the orders from “higher up.” Growing doubts had shadowed his days, and with each crack of his sniper rifle he prayed that it was right. Now he couldn’t do it anymore. He had left and he wasn’t going back. He still didn’t know if it was right, but now “right” didn’t seem to matter.

Sitting here he finally could relax after days of playing hide-and-seek with death’s initiators hidden all over this mountainside. He finally could think. He decided to start with his family. His father had always told him to make decisions by prayer. He so longed for that feeling of knowing he was doing right, but now God seemed so far away. He hadn’t even thought about God for months. He remembered feeling loved by his Creator. But he pushed these thoughts aside. How could he start thinking of God right now? It was too deep for his exhausted mind. He thought of his mother. How he longed for her to tell him she loved him, or just say his name, “Petar….” This thought brought tears to his eyes. He looked around to make sure the darkness couldn’t hear and make fun of his thoughts. This ended his thoughts on family. It was too close to his real self. He couldn’t break.

Being a Serb in this war meant that he was at an advantage- he wasn’t stuck in the city, being bombarded by a continuous stream of shells and sniper bullets. However, he felt trapped in the expectations and responsibilities of his religion, race and family. 

He woke up in a gray pre-dawn mist, realizing that he had slept the whole night on the ground after sliding off his rock. He slumped against the rock, in an attitude of exhaustion and hopelessness. A sliver of the sun came up over the horizon, quickly changing the hues of the whole sky as he looked down the mountainside. As the first rays topped the distant trees, a bullet was breaking the singing of the birds with an all-too-familiar and eerie whistle. It implanted itself in the rock next to his body, breaking large chunks of it off and sending shards off in all directions. He quickly crawled into the brush behind him, feeling the pain of several of the shards that had either bruised or pierced him. He got up and ran through the trees. He had hoped that they wouldn’t find him so soon. He realized that he couldn’t wait to think. He had to start thinking- or praying- now. Suddenly he dropped to his knees. He knew he couldn’t run from everything. God was calling him. He had almost lost his life, and now he realized his need for reality. He must talk to God again. He knew that God would forgive him for ignoring Him.  But he didn’t know what his Heavenly Father would say about his actions, or rather their actions. He just didn’t know. Were they right? Maybe. Probably not always. Right now it didn’t matter.



I wrote this short story in 2012 in response to the book "The Cellist of Sarajevo."