"What now? This is beginning to get too large," the writer says to himself with his usual self-doubt. He lacks the necessary courage for longer prose. And when he begins to think, he can't concentrate. He lies down on the sofa murmuring to himself.

"He wants to experience the war? Okay, I'll put him in a taxi - in Tanusecvi too. Half-chapters: he'll write a letter to Dnevnik, watch a pretty Albanian at another table in the bistro, from the bus see two copulating dogs who can't separate... Mr Paul Dandruff.

"...Yes, it'll be like that, or something like it," mutters the writer. His thoughts become heavier and mix with other, faster thoughts, about paying the last two months' electricity bill (no, tomorrow he can't, he has a meeting with his editor at eleven); he feels the tom cat's head under his palm and hears him purring; it's easy to say he'll soon be dreaming...

They've put him on the midnight shift at the office. The cynical assumption that in exceptional circumstances" men remain awake (in the same way that little boys mustn't learn ballet) is sweetened because Marika's prepared him two sandwiches carefully packed in paper napkins and a thermos of coffee to keep him cosy through the night. The sandwiches are filled with her tender gestures of preparation: the two halves of each baguette buttered and spread with sour cream and between these two halves precise strips of chicken, layers of cheese and slices of fresh paprika and freshly-sliced egg with the yolk showing.

He pours the coffee from the thermos into a plastic cup and takes a bite from a sandwich. Chewing, he begins to type.

Dear Editor,
I am outraged and overwhelmed by the violence taking place in our country...
He looks at the screen. It's not good, it's too inflated, he presses delete leaving Dear Editor, takes another bite and begins to type again,

I'm wondering how to start this letter, whether to write to you ("more natural"). I never thought I would write to Dnevnik at one in the morning while "on guard" in my office, which is so full of people and computers during the day and which now looks so empty - although the computers are still here - but it's happened.

"It's okay." He takes another sip from his coffee.

I feel like everyone else, tense and over-reacting: afraid, itchy and staring-eyed. I'm utterly confused by political broadcasts which disseminate terms like democracy, multiethnicity, etcetera, although in our cruel and naked reality it's our human right to be able to take a gun and shoot anyone...

But where the law of arms rules, primitivism comes to the surface. These stupid Balkan bestialities completely overturn my mental image of Che's guerrilla. Whether bearded or clean shaven, all terrorists are defective terminators, not only those Taliban who blow up statues of Buddha. They're squatting behind rocks shitting themselves with canned laughter...

What a pity, Dear Editor, that people are instinctive beings, part of the animal kingdom. Look at an orphaned foal or a young dog, how he suckles on a foster mother, a mare with a star on her brow or a watery-eyed bitch. When he's finished feeding he jumps on her for a fuck. This drive whinnies and growls even while being offered a pomegranite; even if one ball's cut off the other works like mad. What's the difference between the drive of the young male of that species called "homo sapiens" and that of the young animal? I tell you, Dear Editor, there's no difference; none at all. Maybe one is that in the case of man, because of material pollution, the drive becomes more dangerous. It's not focussed only on sex, which is a form of pleasure for those who participate in it, contrary to ravishing which a few can perpetrate on all. Those impotent foul two-legged...

He taps the last characters so hard he knocks over the half-full coffee cup from Marika's thermos; suddenly realises, "Thank God it's not glass," black liquid spreading across the varnish. The coffee on the table turning a lighter colour, perhaps because of the computer screen, for a few seconds, slowly but surely spreading before he thinks to right the cup. He takes the sandwiches out of the napkins, covers the coffee with the paper, the tissue soaks the coffee, he returns to the last twenty lines on-screen.

"It's not bad, this comparison with young animals." He glances at the napkin. It's spread out and got a little fatter like a dishcloth. He deletes impotent, stands up, puts the soaking napkins gingerly in the bin. He sits down again in front of the computer. He changes foul to arrogant and feels half-satisfied.

These arrogant two-legged entrepreneurs force themselves into this political and financial orifice with nothing but lust to accumulate money and power in their own pocket. These rich idiots don't only poison themselves, which is not so bad, they poison young people too. They sew mafia style and declarative politics together: for example in the educational argument, Can you educate a talented pianist to become a sniper? Unpleasant and half-formed people decide the fate of our country...

...This is what's frustrated me for months, squashed ("no, scapegoated") the Macedonian citizen: total uncertainty. He feels he's like a puppet who's picked on because of SOMEBODY's, in capital letters, games. Three dimensions of paranoia show up: 1) your own country is transformed from a former "oasis of peace" to a shooting range; 2) in your own city you're forced to be a night guard; 3) "- Oh, not this!" He leans back from the computer and scratches his head, and deletes the last two lines.

Dear Editor, even the mighty name (which is also contested) has no significance in stabilising our poor little state. Other states or territories with potent names are not so erect either: Lichenstein, Moldavia, Transylvannia... Abroad, maybe, many people know who that Vlad was, but only a few the Great Duke Jochun II or our Chief Delchef, whose aphorism "The only competition between peoples is cultural competition", one of the most human in history, we recited so many times in school that it's a cliché.

He looks at the clock on the computer: 3.27. But he's been writing this stupid letter for more than two hours! Okay, but this kind of topic is no joke. How could we leave our state to sink?

How could we leave our state to sink? What can we do without her? Will we chose blinkered and conceited politicians to lead our country every four years? I said, Dear Editor, that the animal exists in the human. If you give him the opportunity he will ride the poor human like a galloping horse and make him howl like a wolf and grind his teeth and chop and hack without any compunction. What, Dear Editor, can rein in this animal drive and make our little man be good? What, Mr Editor? Only laws and regulations. The people are not civilised because of themselves but because of the state regulating them.

To finish with the point I made earlier, the name. It's the same whether we name states, people, events; these are names with reasons and causes, for example the old Aztec God of the Earth, Oshamoka, has a very resonant name. It's liuteral meaning is the place that sets two legs travelling. I'm sure, Dear Editor, that the literary and extended meaning of the Aztec Oshamoka, given ages ago and far from here, can be useful for us here and now when our thoughts and nerves are constantly jangled by human stupidity and aggression. Will the citzens of Macedonia become free to travel when we want through our country and the world or will we imprison ourselves and growl like zoo animals in cages? As in every normal country, this depends mainly on mutual respect. But in legal form.

Yours faithfully,
A worried citizen.

It's good that he signs himself "a worried citizen" and not with his own name and surname. Because of Mr Paul Dandruff's offer, Mr Paul Dandruff from WBIN.

When the Director's PA called him to meet Mr Dandruff he was just coming out of the toilet. At home he sits down to piss. At work he uses toilet paper to cover the seat which is always yellow and wet from the piss of colleagues who, before and after their visit to the toilet, are all smiling and friendly. He can direct the stream precisely into the bowl without danger of splashing. After pissing he washes his hands with soap he brings with him. Once he printed out a notice saying "Don't piss on the seat, somebody needs to sit down after you!!!" and stuck it up in the cubicle. The next day it was ripped down and read only "needs to sit down after you!!!"

The voice of Personal Assistant Goga called him while his hands were still wet. He dried them hurriedly and went to the Director's Office.

Published 2004-08-25