LITMIR.BIZ

       Wall of Fire

       Pam Stavropoulos

      Copyright © 2020 Pam Stavropoulos

      Publisher: tredition GmbH, Halenreie 40-44, 22359 Hamburg, Germany

      ISBN

      Printed on demand in many countries

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher.

       SYNOPSIS

       Throughout this war which is stunning in its savagery, I have managed to cordon off my feelings from my thoughts. To compartmentalise. But now the images of carnage are mounting; my psyche is flooding like a dam bursting its walls. I dream of vultures, pausing for the death throes of their prey. Of former sports stadiums converted to concentration camps. Of an expressionless expression. And of a silk scarf, fluttering in the breeze.

      Dominic Vukasinovic has retreated into intellect. Cultivation of the mind, at the expense of emotion, has been his narcotic. But now that path is as lethal to him as the most potent drug or alcohol. And far from insulating him, excessive self-reliance has made him dangerously vulnerable.

      Arriving in Sydney, Australia, after fleeing the war in Yugoslavia, he is outwardly safe at least. Now the snipers with which he contends are subjective. In his attempts to relate to his therapist, Alison Gage, who confronts internal battles of her own, Dominic taps depths of feeling which have previously been inaccessible. And which he is ill equipped to navigate.

       CONTENTS

       Part I Sarajevo 1994

      1. Dominic

      2. Dominic

      3. Milos

      4. Lena

      5. Address to a spectator

      6. Lena

      7. Dominic

       Part 2 Sydney 1995

      8. Alison

      9. Alison

      10. Alison

      11. Alison

       Part 3 Transit

      12. Dominic

      13. Dominic

      14. Dominic

      15. Dominic

      16. Dominic

       Part 4 Encounter

      17. Alison

      18. Alison

      19. Dominic

      20. Dominic

      21. Alison

      22. Ares/Mars

      23. Alison

      24. Dominic

      25. Alison

      26. Alison/Dominic

      27. Dominic

      28. Alison

      29. Dominic

       30 Epilogue: Alison

       Part 1 Sarajevo 1994

       1. Dominic

       I see something.

       I crane forward to see it better. And feel the ligaments of my neck stretch and scream in protest. A pail of what appears to be red paint is flung at me.

       Instinctively I raise my hand to protect my eyes. Before realising that I am shielded by glass, that I am in my car, and that it is the windscreen which has taken the onslaught.

      Only it is not paint that has been thrown. It is blood. The streams and rivulets of which make of my windscreen an expressionist painting.

      Along the roadside groups of people are congregated. They are busy driving five inch nails – which gleam like money – into makeshift crucifixes. Huddled under a tree is what appears to be a family (surely the small figure is that of a child!) And I know with paralysing shock what is soon to happen.

      I can barely contain the horror which rises in me. Which causes me to tighten my grip on the steering wheel, to inadvertently accelerate. And to careen directly into what are now premature victims. My victims.

       Oh my God.

      The last thing I see is the crumpled figure of the child. And the slack arm of the mother from whose body it has been torn. Strangely, incredibly, I also see the contorted but smiling face of the man who is not yet dead.

      At least, his sightless eyes seem to be saying, you cut short our suffering.

      And the figures at the side of the road, as if relieved to be spared a task for which, after all, they felt no relish, turn to congratulate me.

      Another image (there are more, always more).

      This time I am with friends. This time all seems to be well.

      We are having a picnic. We have selected a stately tree to sit beneath. Its richly clothed branches cast deep shade over the blanket on which we sit. The trunk of the tree is gnarled and tangled. It radiates solidity. And I enjoy a brief moment of serenity before something makes me glance up.

      The inert body of a man hangs from a branch above. And there are other figures, swinging from other trees in ghostly parabolas.

      The bile flows in my throat like a poison. I nudge my companion that he may witness and confirm what I am seeing. But he merely nods pleasantly. After the briefest of glances, he focuses again on the bread roll he is buttering. And on the wine he has just poured.

      `Yes’, he says. `Aesthetically pleasing, isn’t it?’

      As I gape in dumb incredulity, he gives me a look akin to complicity. And proffers a glass of wine which I am too stunned to reject.

      They torch a church, and the flames rise like a benediction.

      A wall of fire materialises before us; you expect the Holy Spirit to appear at its heart. There are no people in the church (what a pity, you can almost hear them thinking). The burning takes less than twenty minutes. Only the blackened edifice remains.

      The phallic spire still intact.

      The happy arsonists, murmuring quietly in deep contentment, pick the ruins delicately.

      Fastidiously.

      The worst are when people figure among the victims. The most excruciating are when they are people I know.

      I wake in a cold sweat, my sheet soaked, my head pounding.

      Once I woke to the sound of bullets. Or so I thought. Before realising that it was hail sounding on the roof. And that the particular horror from which I was emerging - both mirror and portent of actual horrors from which others do not emerge - was hallucinatory.

      I am exhausted in the aftermath of these dreams. I am all day haunted by them. I leave in the morning with a saturated psyche. The macabre contents

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