Shards of Moonlight || A Short-story Collection

Zagreb - SR

Five tiles less on the roof. Another brick in the wall.

First the Corona-crisis, then an earthquake at half-past six on a Sunday. The strongest since 1880. One could claim a higher authority decided to punish the sinners, taking the point of view of one of the most Catholic cities in the world.

Greenery around, embellishments on the proud homes to the residents of "Gornji i Donji grad." With the only addition that fancy turrets have been removed and the historic tile roofs are decorated with gapes, whole walls broke away. Cars crushed under the wreckage, families still staying at the vacant city dormitory after two months: homeless. The military keeps roaming the streets, sweeping the combusted chimneys disrupted into thousand pieces. Construction cranes are swapping positions every day to repair parts of the battered city: removing tiles and replacing them in the knowledge that if the earthquake was to repeat, another part of the roof would surely break away. Looking up at the once flawless tiles, one can make out the lighter patches that have been fixed. One feels the safest walking on the train rails, as the floors are littered with shards of glass, piles of sand, and discolored mattresses. The fronts of houses blocked with decluttered attics and whole parts of the sidewalk marked with warning tape labeled with "danger due to discharge of dangerous gases" or "stop traffic police".

Politicians commit to the victims of the catastrophe, only not being able to offer reassuring handshakes due to Corona. Nonetheless, their apologetic speeches will sure replace the homes of residents and fix the fissures not only in their homes but minds as well. Last summer our vote had been between the devil and the deep blue sea. Corruption versus self-adulation. Politicians that would rather exploit the workers in their supermarket chain "Konzum" as economists and build fountains and statues of their glory than fix the damage of 1880 properly. The concrete less, low-quality tiles that broke away 140 years later.

My eyes raise to another roof demolished by gaping leakage and meet the eyes of a building worker. How fragmentary our world must seem from above. He relaxes over ten meters above the ground with a sandwich in hand, a crane looming over his head. Another hole to fix as the holes in our souls cannot be mended. Hospitals are overloaded not only because of the virus but also due to the mental wreckage. The one tower of our cathedral crashed to the floor, the other one was removed due to constant danger emitting from the looming sandstone summit. The headless symbol of our city.

Yet, this chaos affects every one of us: the businessmen and false politicians in their great lawns or cabins at the sea, the homeless people with streets void of safety, the working class, and their children. The future of tomorrow cannot enter the old, battered schools anymore. This may lead to switching schools and losing not only friends, their family away from home, but also having to catch up to new school curricula mere weeks before the summer break. A load of stress for the little ones. And not only for them. Their parents already go through ordeals due to Corona, teachers lose their jobs, overworked doctors and nurses, which now led to countless nervous breakdowns.

Every cloud has a silver lining. We all are given another chance to fix past mistakes. Most probably: the last one.