Jorenko
Thu, 11 Dec 2003 08:22:35 GMT

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“Well it’s . . . it’s kind of hard to tell from here.”
“Is it?” *squints* “Yeah, I suppose you’re right. Let’s move in closer.”
“No, we need to be farther away.”
“Further? Are you mad?”
“No, I’ve just got a hunch.”
“Fine, let’s just go.”

“Far enough now?”
“I think so.” *turns around* “Yeah, that’s good.”

SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIENCE

Stychard
Thu, 11 Dec 2003 14:20:22 GMT

My eyes!!!! MY EYES!!!!11!11!11!!1

Canjo Rarebear
Thu, 11 Dec 2003 23:36:22 GMT

I have completely arbitrarily decided to tack my last name onto the user name.

Okay. None of the recent stories I’ve produced for Creative Writing have been funny stories. Not that I think they have to be funny to post here. But I haven’t felt that magical feeling…oh, screw magical feelings. It’s a happy story.

Opening Word….

Okay this is taking an aeon….

I wrote this story after producing a massive research report about Yugoslavia under Communism. It was floating around in my head. Also, I was cursed by Yugoslavia for that week, and this was an attempt to exorcise the curse.

The Story of Marija, Obra, and Aleksandar

(In 1942 the Communist Party of Yugoslavia began publication of the periodical “Slobodni dom,” or “Free Home,” in Croatia to encourage national unity in Yugoslavia and support for the Popular Front. The periodical was full of parables, axioms, stories, etc. to serve its purpose. This is one of those stories.)

Marija Hrvatsko is a Croat. What do you think about her now? I’m sure you think she’s going to be the hero of this story. But maybe she won’t be. Marija lives in the countryside with her family; she is the grandmother of eighteen children, and she lives with them on their family farm up in Croatia. But you knew that already, right? But are you sure? What would you have thought if I told you she lived in Bosnia, Slovenia, Serbia, or Hercegovina? How about Vojvodina or Kosovo? Think about it. Now, Marija loves talking to her grandchildren and telling them all sorts of things, even the sons and daughters of not just her firstborn but her second-born, third-born, fourth-born, and fifth-born. She teaches them all, unlike the custom, because she knows the best way to teach them for them to grow up as good, peaceful, happy people. This is the story of how she found out.

Marija is certainly hard worker in her old age, but she didn’t used to be. She used to complain and fiddle with her black dress and have her brothers do all the work, and later when she moved away from her brothers, she made her sons and daughters to work extra since she didn’t, and even more after her husband died. Since the Hrvatsko family was lucky to have extra-fertile soil between mountain peaks, they never had problems selling enough even though Marija was lazy. On the contrary, they sold more turnips than even the Marković family, which owned such a huge estate that every other estate in the village of Bag bordered on one of its sides.

Now, Marija’s first son was named Pavle, her second was named Aleksa, and her third was named Petar. She also had two daughters, Pavla and Bagska. Every month for years right after her husband died she would go down to market with some money she found around the house and buy turnip seeds and make all of them sow them and harvest them, planting a new set of seeds each month on each field so that a new harvest came each month. I bet you think Marija’s clever like that because she’s a Croat, right? Well, one of her best friends is a Slovene, and she got the idea from her. That Slovene is named Obra, and she doesn’t look dirty at all. In fact, she washes her face every day and even brushes her teeth—more than Marija can claim to do, I’m afraid. Obra hasn’t got any children because she thinks she’s more useful without having a bunch of little mouths to feed, even though you probably thought she had about seven million children because that’s what you thought all Slovenes were like. Now you know otherwise, see?

Obra is also a member of the Communist Party, a leading member of a democratic coalition seeking the national liberation and unification of all Yugoslavia. She’s taken that idea to heart, and she’s had that idea since she was very small. So she was a communist when she first met Marija in Bag. Even then she was so committed to the ideals of the Party that she didn’t even think of herself as a Slovene, but as a Yugoslav, because the national differences in were and still are only backwards remnants of feudalism. Obviously, she knew that, and she tried to tell everyone she knew, as she still does today. That’s how Marija and Obra met, in fact.

“Hello!” said Marija one day, before the birth of her last son Petar. “I haven’t seen you around! Who are you?” she asked Obra.

Said Obra: “Obra, and you?”

“Marija,” replied Marija, noticing Obra’s strong Slovene accent. Marija was confused then, because Obra didn’t look like a Slovene at all, nor did she smell like garlic like all Slovenes do. Of course, we know all Slovenes don’t smell like garlic, but Marija thought that because she was ignorant. Did you think that? I’m sure you didn’t. We’ve come so far from the days when this story I’m telling happened; it was almost 20 years ago! So Marija asked, “Are you from around here?”

“Why does it matter?” asked Obra, “I’m a South Slav, and so are you. There are only regional differences between us, and we all have the same historical roots. Why does it matter, I ask again?”

Marija was quite stumped. She had never seen this attitude before, and it confused her. But Obra and Marija kept on talking, and they became friends. Eventually Obra told Marija about how to use her fields to grow as many turnips as possible, and for a while Obra even worked on the fields with Marija’s offspring.

Sometimes Obra talked to Marija’s family over dinner about her Communist ideas, and Obra found a lot of time to play with Petar when he was only as tall as a milk bottle. But Obra found that Marija’s family wasn’t very strong.

“Marija, why is it that Pavle and Aleksa never talk, and rather stand with their backs to each other and their arms crossed? They are brothers, can’t you see? Shouldn’t they work in harmony, and couldn’t they triple the turnip harvest if they worked together?”

“I don’t know!” said Marija, “it’s just that Pavle and Aleksa slept on different beds, I guess. I know the other kids don’t do that, because not doing it is a Croat custom of ours. Are you saying I should be more traditional?”

“By no means, my sister!” declared Obra, “you should not just follow tradition, but you should think about what you do. In an address at the second party congress that I attended, Comrade Ranković told us about that in his stirring address in Novi Sad at the Second Party Congress. We should think about what we do and decide for the best ourselves. That’s why I joined the Communists. Don’t you think that’s the best choice of affiliation? But to the matter at hand: couldn’t you see raising them apart would cause differences? Of course, they are small differences, and only really in Pavle and Aleksa’s minds. And their continued conflict is only harmful.”

For a year Obra even lived in Marija’s house. It was around then that the Marković family left their mansions and vast wheat fields and the Ranković family moved in.

Aleksandar Ranković was a Serb. A Serb, of all people! Now what do you think of him? In that huge estate! Do you think he’s going to try to take over because he’s a Serb? What do you think?

Aleksandar Ranković had seven children—so much for the idea that Serbs only have two children and eat the rest! What a ridiculous notion that was in the first place. I certainly hope no one today still believes that. Aleksandar was also very kind, and he gave a large portion of his wheat harvest to all his neighbors. Marija didn’t want to accept his wheat, because she thought he had poisoned it.

“Marija, I offer you this wheat of my harvest as a token of friendship; why do you deny it?” asked Aleksandar at Marija’s doorstep one morning. Marija was afraid that Aleksandar had poisoned the wheat out of hate for the Croats, since he was a Serb. But we know Marija was wrong.

“Shut up!” said she, quite rudely I might add, and slammed the door in his face. The next day, he was there again, and the next day, and the next day. Marija started becoming jealous of his large estate, and started forcing her children to work even harder in the turnip fields, until they hardly got any sleep at night. Now then Obra was living with Marija, and she stopped her one day and asked: “Marija, why are you doing this? Comrade Ranković is a kind man. Is it because he’s a Serb? I thought you were beyond that, Marija. I really did. Are you really so backwards? Don’t you realize that that’s just a medieval token left over? Aren’t we out of the feudal times? Marija, what have I taught you?”

Marija was quite ashamed, and she went to the Rankovićs’ house the very next day. She stood at the door and knocked on the four corners of the door as the Croat custom was and still is, and Aleksandar answered.

“Oh, hello, Marija! How wonderful to see you,” said he. He looked as if he had just finished shaving, since he had some cuts on his chin, and his blood was red, not green as Marija thought Serb blood was. (You didn’t think that, right?)

“Mr. Ranković,” began Marija, faltering, worried.

“Don’t be afraid, madam,” said Aleksandar, “I understand your national fear of me, and I pride you in overcoming it. You see, I am a member of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, and I believe not in nationalities but in one Yugoslav nation, maybe with a few differences between some places. Please do not be afraid. Would you like some of my wheat? I am very generous with it.”

But by now Marija had begun crying. Aleksandar took him into his house, which, although large on the outside, was small and homely on the inside. He sat her down in a wooden chair and patted down the black shawl over her head.

“Now, Marija,” he said, “Don’t you think if you had listened to Obra instead of your silly fears you wouldn’t have this situation? And you would have quite a lot of wheat, too. I know about Obra because she is my friend, although she is a Slovenian and I am a Serb. We are both Yugoslavs and we are both Communists, and nothing more: we are comrades. Don’t you see?” Aleksandar patted her back and offered her some tea he had brought all the way from Macedonia. “It’s like a family. Maybe we slept in different beds, but there still isn’t any difference between us. We’re brothers and sisters. I’ll give you as much wheat as you want, my sister. Listen to Obra and listen to me: we’re bringing this country into a bright, peaceful future.”

Marija went home with a smile through her tears and several armfuls of wheat. Aleksandar followed after her carrying more wheat, and it swished as he walked. When they got home, they found Pavle and Aleksa working together in the field and facing each other, performing three times as much work as before in half the time and not even breaking a sweat because they were working together. Obra was standing outside and she waved to Marija and Aleksandar.

Later that year, Obra had to move away to another village, but she still visited Bag as much as she could. Aleksandar stayed in Bag and his children became town leaders and always made fair decisions, and even though they were Serbs everyone trusted them. Marija herself joined the Communist Party after talking it through with Aleksandar, and Pavle and Aleksa went off to fight in the Partisan Army for the Popular Front against those terrible counterrevolutionary fascists. Today, Pavle and Aleksa are on vacation from fighting in the war and Petar is about to join, and Marija loves teaching her grandchildren about all the things Obra and Aleksandar told her. She knows they’ll turn out fine, even though they sleep in different beds at night.

Translation by R. L. Futrell

Canard
Fri, 12 Dec 2003 00:35:03 GMT

I actually like it, a lot

I love the color scheme, and the graphics used are really great, too. It really gives a good idea of what your artwork is like.

It’s just too bad everything else is gone now!!