Driving on a Road Lit By Bombs
Fear: friend or foe? That is not the question.
“Pheeeeeew, boom!”
A big falling star backed by the piercing sound of a heavy object speeding from the sky and hitting the ground with a muffled boom fleshed through a pitch-black night in the distance to my left.
I kept my gaze on the unlit country road in front of me. I trusted my headlights as if my life depended on them. It sort of did. Mine and those of the two young women riding with me that chilly April night. We were driving from Belgrade towards a small, less-frequented, border crossing with Hungary. The decision to leave after a few weeks of daily bombings was clearly rooted in fear. And exhaustion. Our whole nation had been spending their nights in bomb shelters, us included. Not much sleeping had happened in those dusty, creepy, overcrowded places…
The NATO bombing of Serbia started on March 24th, 1999, without UN authorisation, and went on for 78 days, without interruption. My sister, a friend of mine, and I, all three in our twenties, left the country heavy-hearted four weeks in, urged by our parents.
We began packing after another sleepless night hoping to leave before the sirens started wailing at dusk as usual.
