Trafika Europe 5 - Slovenian Interlude

I knew that, on the road I was taking, I could reach Vukovar, and also Višnjići, in a few hours, but I didn’t really know if I wanted to see either. Given that I had never been to Slavonia, I wove a picture of Višnjići that felt correct; imagining I’d already visited. I saw homes scattered across a wide treeless plain; smoke billowing out of chimneys; the warmth of active fireplaces; the darkness broken only by lights that streamed through windows into the rooms of peaceful residents who never saw that November night coming. A dog barked, summoning the Greek chorus of other village dogs, and then it would grow quiet once more. In the distance, someone slowly tramped home along a muddy bank between two fields. Someone else stepped out of a house, releasing the avian coo of children’s voices from inside, before it disappeared again, hushed by the closing door and overtaken by the hum of wind and crickets and the creak of a nearby forest. It was a November evening like thousands of November evenings before, in this non- existent history of the village of Višnjići. But somewhere, off on that flat horizon, the Third Corps of the Yugoslav People’s Army, under the command of General Borojević, slowly approached.

‘Green card, please.’

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