He is realizing how fortunate he is to belong to this family,

He doesn’t like it. But he does like it.

The thought of such an impossibility chokes him.

Tears springing to her eyes, she whispers, “Are you from Rajska Polja?”

These remain always under the teacher’s desk and are unpacked and displayed only for the inspector’s annual visit.

It is the face of the man who hit him in Pačići, who told him to run, who put a boot to his chest, fired his gun, and mouthed the words, Be silent, you are dead.

She is happy today.

“Are we all in sheets, pushing our shapes into space, trying to see each other behind the sheets but we can only see a little?”

He is caught between two zones, trapped between the past and the future, in a place that is timeless.