That is to say, I read the story out in the open for the first time four years ago. Sometime after the war ended, a newspaper from, ludicrously, Johannesburg carried the story of the second vignette. Once the story of their friend became more widely known, the soldiers were visited by a delegation of Albanian men who demanded that the bitch and her litter be put to death by the soldiers or handed over to them for summary execution. If it weren't pathetic it would be amusing. The third story concerns the current Yugoslavia, far north, far from Kosovo and its toils, in a city bombed and still licking its wounds, in a country whose people are driven to the brink of destruction.
Life is hard there.
It is hard to keep one's own body and soul together. People are finding it incredibly difficult to keep their children fed. When it comes to a choice, people will feed their children instead of their pets. The city streets in Yugoslavia are full of thin dogs with prominent ribs and tails between their legs who lie hopelessly beside the pavement and eye the pedestrians with a beseeching eye. The basements of houses are home to countless cats who retreat there to have yet another litter of street kittens who are then left to fend for themselves as best they can.