Fourth lnstalment

Well let's go, there was no point in daydreaming, I have an army to join, the war was not going to come to me it did, I walked through the main door and bang there was a loud explosion not to far away from me the war had come to me and I wasn't even in an army no wonder there were so many people waiting to leave and I was the only idiot wanting to stay, as I got outside I saw what I roughly thought I would see, to my right was a building completely gutted, another on the opposite side of the road with hardly any windows intact and on the other side of the road a huge crater, which way now. Straight ahead was a long street and it seemed the best way to go so off I went listening to more explosions in the distance. As I walked I could not help but notice that there were signs of a city on the front line everywhere, nearly every building had holes of various sizes in them, some looked like direct hits and others from shrapnel, all the basement windows were sandbagged and windows taped, it looked like most people spent their time in the cellars as it was the safest place. This was Osijek in all it's glory I was sure that it didn't look like this before the war but that's what happens when you stand in the way of an advancing army.

The only people that I saw were running and here I was walking and just looking around as if I was sightseeing, I was aware of the dangers but why run, I had nowhere to run to, nowhere to hide so I continued straight ahead looking for somewhere to enlist in the army but saw nothing. There was one cigarette left in the box so I smoked it as if I was about to face a firing squad, further up the road was a kiosk to see if it was open and thankfully it was so I bought some cigarettes as I would have become a nervous wreck without them. Inside there was a man standing beside her who was dressed in uniform with a rifle slung over his shoulder so I decided to try my luck at english and asked where could I join. After a short discussion between themselves he kissed what looked like his girlfriend and came out of the kiosk, he gestured to me to follow him, so not having any other idea what to do I decided to to follow him. After walking a short we passed through an open aired market and then came to a building it was sandbagged all around, it looked really safe. There was a large wooden door in front of us, he opened it and we went in, I was right it was some sort of command center, there were soldiers all around, destroyed vehicles all over the outside perhaps this was a barracks before the war, smashed glass and debris everywhere and it looked a right mess, they need a new cleaning lady i joked to myself. The soldier who had brought me here continued until we reached one part of the building where I waited outside and he went in, he returned quite quickly and was taken inside, shown a seat and sat on it and waited. It was a small room with a table and chairs in the middle, there were empty coffee cups everywhere, there were radio's on shelves and rifles leaning against the opposite wall this was better than being outside where I could still hear the explosions, I was given a cup of that awful coffee that I had drunk in Zagreb. All of a sudden a door opened and in came a man accompanied by two vicious looking black dogs, I picked my legs up just in case they were hungry, he was dressed in black just like HOS in Zagreb, he had a revolver on one side of his belt and a radio on the other, he looked like an armed Croatian Mafia but he seemed to be a sort of person who was in charge, just the person I need.