{"id":10333,"date":"2021-12-27T12:09:53","date_gmt":"2021-12-27T12:09:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eu-china.literaryfestival.eu\/?page_id=10333"},"modified":"2021-12-27T12:09:53","modified_gmt":"2021-12-27T12:09:53","slug":"translated-excerpt-dear-insects-and-other-scary-stories-masa-kolanovic","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/eu-china.literaryfestival.eu\/zh-hans\/translated-excerpt-dear-insects-and-other-scary-stories-masa-kolanovic\/","title":{"rendered":"Translated Excerpt – Dear insects and other scary stories\u00a0– Ma\u0161a Kolanovi\u0107"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
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Dear insects and other scary stories<\/b><\/strong><\/h3>\n

Ma\u0161a Kolanovi\u0107<\/strong><\/h4>\n
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Pests Are Almost<\/b><\/strong><\/h5>\n
Like People<\/b><\/strong><\/h5>\n
I can\u2019t take it anymore. I want to get rid of all of these relics as soon as possible. They only remind me of death. There\u2019s already a grave-yard of old furniture in front of the building. A pile-up of tattered sofas, ripped out corner accents, dismantled children\u2019s bookcases stickered with soccer players and Smurfs, wobbly chests and over-turned drawers that have started to molder. And they\u2019ll molder even more in the rain, which had just started sprinkling. People from the building threw out all this bulk waste a few weeks ago. Probably to get rid of things at the end of the year. Like they\u2019re heeding some old superstition. Nobody knows how long the clean-up will last nor who\u2019ll pick it up. It\u2019ll probably be rotting right here in front of us for months. Gypsies have been roaming around this neighborhood and circling around the piles for two days already. They\u2019re picking through what\u2019s useful. I\u2019m going straight to IKEA today. I\u2019m going to buy some furniture that\u2019s light and airy as a feather. I\u2019ll also con-tribute to the pile so whoever wants to pick through it, let them. I\u2019ll throw out all this bulky lumber and the massive pull out couch, I\u2019ll part with the dark brown china closet and the nightstands for-ever. I\u2019ll be light and modern, in sleek Scandinavian gray. I\u2019ll ask that kid on the first floor to take out all this derelict furniture to the curb, I\u2019ll even give him some dough for it, since he\u2019s without a job and probably living off his parents \u2014 he just hangs around here all day anyway. First, I want to get rid of the massive green couch. I can\u2019t stop seeing Joso on it, getting smaller, turning into a pest, dying. Sometimes, the combination of the pillow with the crumpled blanket starts looking like his scrunched outline on that couch, the fetus-position that he settled on in his final days. Then, I can really see him, as if he\u2019s still alive and lying right there in front of me, only instead of arms and legs he has grown antennae like the thin creases on the cover that branch around the middle bulge made by the pillow. It\u2019s already been six months. I gave away all his clothes to the refugees in Porin. There were some really nice suits in that pile. From his days as a director. A director of the State De-partment Store. When he was the head honcho in the mid-eighties. In the end, it all came down to nothing. Fancy lunches, business trips, contracts, committees, meetings. What good is all that when you\u2019re curled up in a fetus position. First, they forced him into early retirement in the early nineties. He had fallen out of favor. And he was a Serb on top of it. Okay, he had one thing going for him, a Croat wife. But it would\u2019ve been better the other way around. He didn\u2019t manage to switch allegiances fast enough. Those who had been picking up his tab were later turning their backs on him. First one heart attack, then another, and then, bam, cancer. And these can-cers, they\u2019ve been spreading everywhere around us ever since the war. Like we\u2019re sandy beaches. At this point, you\u2019re just waiting to see who\u2019s next. I\u2019ve been through it all with him. From beginning to end. And children? What can you expect of them? They have their own worries. They\u2019re just trying to make it in this world. I\u2019m going to IKEA now and I\u2019ll throw out all this decrepit furniture that peo-ple have been dying on, crying on, pissing and shitting on for years. I\u2019ll rip out all these wooden lighting fixtures and old wallpaper. I\u2019ll outfit everything in a new Scandinavian design, it\u2019ll be like in those sleek, modern pharmacies. I\u2019ll flatten to the ground all this moldy furniture, the kitchen sets dripping with layers of grease, which I can\u2019t scrape off even with a drill bit. I\u2019ll toss everything away and start from scratch. That way maybe I\u2019ll even find the nest of cock-roaches, which have been darting out like bullets at night and get-ting lost in all this massive woodwork. Oh, I\u2019ll sprinkle their nest nicely with poison. I see them. I see them everywhere. I don\u2019t even know if they\u2019re real or not anymore.<\/h5>\n

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I\u2019ll even squander what little savings I have, because who knows how much longer I have left to live. We\u2019ve saved up with all kinds of nest eggs, in dinars, foreign currencies, and kunas. We just work, make sacrifices and save up like bees, and then everything collaps-es, some inflation, some bank, or the state gobbles it all up. And we just keep putting life on hold. Saving up for rainy days. As if this life of ours isn\u2019t rainy enough. Now it\u2019s my sister\u2019s turn, too. They found something on her armpit. She\u2019s waiting for the results as we speak. I don\u2019t want to call her, I don\u2019t want to know the results. At least not today. I\u2019ve had enough of this slow death. But you just go right ahead and start saving! For what dead future, for what old age. When it comes with all its troubles, no amount of savings will be able to bribe it. Just like they tried to bribe that hubby of mine, to go along, to sell the state assets when he didn\u2019t want to \u2014 a kick in the ass and in comes the new cadre. And he was a Serb on top of it. Later, all these new honchos ended up in prison. By then, we had already left public life. We didn\u2019t even feel any relief. Fine, at least I kept my job in the state firm, which didn\u2019t go under and paid me a pittance until my retirement. I\u2019m going to IKEA, at least it\u2019s now in the neighborhood. When I remember those trips to Graz, getting up at four in the morning. Driving in the dark, up to the border, and then through Slovenia. We\u2019d arrive in the suburbs of Graz right before dawn. It\u2019d still be dark out. You wouldn\u2019t know where to begin, the time is ticking, and your body\u2019s pumping with some crazed adrenaline. All these stores in one place, you\u2019d buy as much as you could hide in your car, mostly trifles. Some tiny chair that\u2019s easy to fold up, some blankets, a set of plates. Nothing big. Something bigger wouldn\u2019t fit in the trunk anyway. Some clothes that you couldn\u2019t find around here. Modern. From the future. They weren\u2019t even that expensive. And that hubby of mine would always find something to complain about. A Director of the State Depart-ment Store, but he hates shopping. He\u2019d worry about getting caught for smuggling. If he could live a hundred more years, he\u2019d still wear that same exact suit and that same shirt with a greasy collar, and every afternoon he\u2019d lie with the newspaper on that same sunken couch whose springs would jab further and further into his ribs. The important thing is to do business fairly and according to regu-lations. Well, he can have \u2018em! I even wanted him to be a little more corrupt back then, it was fashionable at that time, when everythingwas changing, when socialism was dying, while we hoped for the better. Everyone loosened their grip a little back then. And then it started in earnest. Afterwards, it was each man for himself and god against all. Now IKEA is right here in front of our noses. In the Zagreb-East business district. No more border crossings, hiding of trifles, ripping of price tags, doctoring of receipts. Swedishness knows no borders. I\u2019m going. A gypsy is playing turbo-folk on his cell phone while picking through scrap. He asks me whether I\u2019ve got anything. Soon enough, my darling, soon enough. Christmas trees on the ground everywhere. The Catholic Christmas is over. Some-body should let the neighbors know. Christmas trees are lying in front of the dumpster like corpses. Great savings are about to start. Water drips down the gray fa\u00e7ades.<\/h5>\n

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This clunker of mine can barely start. Who else drives an old \u0160koda Favorit? With no air conditioning. The dead Director of the State De-partment Store, that\u2019s who. The Last Mohican of market socialism. Like I need something better. It\u2019s not like I go anywhere. What\u2019s all this construction everywhere? I haven\u2019t left my neighborhood in months and now I hardly recognize the city. Construction every-where. Are there even enough people to fit into so much construc-tion? Is there anyone dying in this new construction? Zagreb-East. Business district East. The industrial district \u017ditnjak is not too far off. They were blowing up Serb houses and chasing people out of their homes over there, and we didn\u2019t know anything about it and now we pretend that we still don\u2019t. We got through it alive at least, which is more than some others can say. Now there\u2019s new houses even there. Like nothing happened. What am I saying, they\u2019ve built them everywhere. I can\u2019t miss the turn for IKEA. I can\u2019t even see well anymore. I\u2019m blind as a bat. I\u2019m driving straight into the sun. Now rain, now shine, even the weather\u2019s gone mad. Even the win-ters aren\u2019t what they used to be. Just a bunch of damp wind and the sun hiding behind the clouds. But there it is, I see it, the yellow-and-blue building. It looks like a toy from afar. Here it is! I got the direc-tions right. It\u2019s swelling in front of me. Getting bigger and bigger. Monday morning and the parking lot\u2019s full. People and things. IKEA people on the billboard. Make room for life.<\/h5>\n

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 <\/p>\n

– Translation by Vladislav Beronja<\/strong><\/h6>\n
<\/h5>\n
<\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear insects and other scary stories Ma\u0161a Kolanovi\u0107 Pes   …\u66f4\u591a\u5185\u5bb9<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/eu-china.literaryfestival.eu\/zh-hans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/10333"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/eu-china.literaryfestival.eu\/zh-hans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/eu-china.literaryfestival.eu\/zh-hans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eu-china.literaryfestival.eu\/zh-hans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eu-china.literaryfestival.eu\/zh-hans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10333"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/eu-china.literaryfestival.eu\/zh-hans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/10333\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10334,"href":"http:\/\/eu-china.literaryfestival.eu\/zh-hans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/10333\/revisions\/10334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/eu-china.literaryfestival.eu\/zh-hans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}