The day when you came home...

The night had swallowed the day placing a dark carpet over the streets with blips of dim lights protruding through the covering. Darkness and gloom set the mood for what was about to come.  The stars seemed farther than they actually were and those glittering decorations did not bring usual joy of searching for the occasional falling stars.  Tonight was different as it could be; prescient, filled with fear predicting what was about to realize.
A door bell echoed piercing sounds as the door became ajar.  Silhouettes of three men appeared.  At first, they were unrecognizable but at a closer look I saw my father and uncle leaning on both sides of some unknown individual while on the unsupported sides the crutches erected them.  The chattering of teeth and indescribable fear struck us all.  I could not move, only the movement of my teeth prevailed, uncontrollably.  Their smiles did not seem too comforting as they stumbled into the flat, into our kitchen.  My stoic mother took it well, composed and realistic.  My grandmother on the other hand saw both of her sons wounded by the evils of war; crushed she wept for a long time.  Then the ambulance came to help them with the bleeding wounds.  Children hopped around the new sighting and jumped around the van eagerly wanting to know what had occurred.  I could not talk, I failed to produce any vocals.  The only thing I could concentrate on is the chattering of my teeth that did not seem to subside.  The moment came when I felt helpless, useless.  I saw things happening around me but I could not participate, only watch and wait.  I was struck by what I saw.  I wanted to cry or scream or hug my dad but I became motionless and immobile.  Both him and my uncle were reassuring us that they were okay, but the blood did not seem to stop dripping on our carpet.

They were lucky, they claimed.  Only few months earlier they were drafted to participate in the conflict, unwillingly.  They agreed to go because they knew sooner or later the soldiers will find them and forcefully take them to serve in the army.  The problem was we were in war; the most senseless, atrocious war that no one really wanted; or at least we thought so.  At first, they were stationed in some remote village to guard it while inhabiting some half destroyed house, hoping that the call to fight would never come.  There were others from our city, true Yugoslavs, decent human beings only wanted for it all to seize so they can return to normalcy.  But what is normalcy after surviving a war???  

On the day they were wounded, the regiment was sent to a nearby town to engage in a fight.  The full on combat over the trenches facing each other, the bombs and constant sound of guns and cannons resonated.  And then there was another sound, more closer, more resolute followed by the explosion shattering shrapnel in the trench where my father and uncle were located.  Unable to move, laying there filled with fear they were struck on the first day of the combat.  What a luck!!  They never had to use their own guns, they remained pure and clean, they remained human.  All they wanted was a normal life they led before.  

After, they were taken to a hospital were they spent a couple of days.  They were given clothes of dead soldiers in which they appeared on our door step.  Wounded and hurt they came home, but at least they came back alive.  This was a blessing in disguise.  Never again they were to bear arms, never again they were to be sent to the trenches of death.  They lived, they survived and in that moment my dad decided that it was time to leave it all behind.  We lost our country, we lost our humanity, we lost our city, we simply lost...But I will never forget that day, when my dad came home!