'Flying Blind'
an excerpt

Ludmila left the Zemlski Musej just about drunk with history, by turns her hair had stood on end, she felt awe and even a bit of amusement, at the coin hoard of old coins from King Tvrtko II's reign, the size of a small woman's thumbnails each, and not at all like modern coins, some were even a little shiny.
Seeing the Runic letters on a small column was very odd to her, she thought to herself, those damn Vikings, they sure got around no? And she
The fragments of fresco from Bobovac many of which showed eyes, and therefore the precise brushwork of eybrows, eyelashes, actually that exhibit was a bit creepy, the eyes seemed to follow her as she looked, they looked back. How did people then paint such perfect eyes?

She lit a clove cigarette, a bad habit she'd picked up from her friend Angel back in Yakima. She liked the taste, she only smoked them on rare occasions, this one was to celebrate having gotten to the museum at last. Yes her mobile phone was vibrating madly, yes she should answer but right now she wanted to savor the memory of all those earrings, and necklaces, some silver some brass, some gold, she wanted to remember the armour, she wanted to fix in her mind all of the amazing and beautiful things she had seen.

Speaking of vibes that damned mobile phone was buzzing nastily in her pocket like a giant cicada ready to hatch. She only smoked half of her clove cigarette, half was nearly too much at this altitude, and with air quality what it is in Sarajevo, smoking was doublely stupid. It wasn't a craving thing with her. She didn't do it often, just sometimes, as sort of a treat. She found a place to put it out, and then put it back in the tin she carried the cigarettes in. She'd had her eye on a pretty brass case for them in a little antique shop in Baščašrija. She was begining to think that that neighborhood was dangerous, seriously, between some of the cute and occasionally tacky tourist stuff and the seriously beautiful things like the six velvet and silver Bosnian ladies vests, with heavy silver zardosi work on them, the seriously expensive beautiful vests. Other women lusted after mink, Ludmilla had always loved really good zardosi work.

Her Ibro smoked, he did so on the balcony, standing carefully in the corner, there was a trellis on the balcony of his flat in Sarajevo. A small table and a couple chairs sat there. He never ever smoked indoors. 'Bez kulturno je' He smoked far more than Ludmilla , one couldn't say he really smoked a lot, but it was a lot more than Ludmilla's rare hit of clove cigarettes. He hadn't smoked at all before the war, but nearly everyone who hadn't before began to then.

'Something about war' he said. 'You learn all kinds of bad habits, smoking is the least of it! It kills the stink of death.'

Ludmilla and he'd married in Yakima, but he wanted to show Ludmilla his country, he was contemplating permanant return. At very least he wanted to go back and forth.

Ludmilla insisted on being allowed out alone sometimes.'Look Ibro, you may think I'm cute, but trust me at my age, NO ONE is going to kidnap me to be in a brothel in Montenegro!' she said. That was his real fear. They had some differing tastes, Ibro didn't care for museums for example. He understood Ludmilla liked them, he preferred the outdoors. So sometimes they did things separately. Sometimes together. Shopping they did together. 'I don't want anyone to cheat you!' he'd say. Usually that was fun, they would go have čevapi together afterwards and that was nice.

Right now Ludmilla was a little worried about Ibro, they'd watched 'Nafaka' a couple nights before, on T.V. and Ibro had kind of a bad reaction. He'd been a bit moody, and not said too much except to remark that one of the characters, a Bosnian soldier reminded him of one of his friends, and the scene of the guy getting his legs blown off by the land-mine upset him. Ludmilla could relate, even if she'd never personally lived through a war.