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Faruk Šehić
The total power of the State
could be seen in the fact
that even its lowest echelon,
Kosta the park warden, was
perfectly intimidating.
We avoided him like the
plague, and we would wait
for him to go down the road
into town reciting the Party
slogans he had learned by
heart, which could even
make the bark of the robinias
seem smooth and soft. Then
we would dash to the wild
and irrepressible bushes with
sturdy rods sprouting yellow
petals all along their length;
we called them
magelana
,
but later I discovered they
were Forsythia. These were
our boats, which we named
after the famous Portuguese
seafarer Ferdinand Magellan.
Every
magelana
could fit
two sailors and a captain.
Our
magelanas
grew close
together, so we could see
and call to each other on our
imaginary journeys. It was
best when a warm spring
breeze came up, and then it
was like a gale that strained
at the ropes of our ships and
rocked us on the branches
like mariners fighting against
a raging sea. Everything
started to spin around us
– the grass, the trees, the
gravel on the paths and the
houses nearby. That was the
moment when we were freed
of gravity. The Earth turned
and the world hung above us,
but we gave resolute orders
and bravely put out into the
wide sea of the sky. We sailed
without fear, with our hearts
as astrolabe and compass.
Look, this is where that
marvellous tree used to be,
whose trunk was completely
covered in ivy, so it was easy
to climb up its tough veins
into the crown, where you