Miro Kopčalić likes to confess that he is quite confused about his predicament. “How in the world did I end up in this horrible place?” he asks rhetorically whenever there is a crowd around him. But now he has figured it out. “There can be hardly any doubt about it any longer,” he beams at everyone who will listen, “this is hell!” Comforting as this realization is, now he wants to know precisely why he is here. “What did I do to deserve this punishment?” he giggles half in jest. Not even hell is enough to make Miro happy.

Addendum (May 11, 2008)

I decided to send this piece to someone special no sooner than I finished writing it. And who could be more special than the governor of Istria, Ivan Jakovčić?! It did not take me long to find the right postcard, too. On its face there is a black-and-white photograph of a girl of about five or six. She is jumping in the air in front of a cemetery gate somewhere in rural Spain. Dressed in white, she is expressionless. Hell incarnate, as it were. I am quite sure our governor will be most happy with this present of mine. The postcard will be on its way tomorrow morning. I can hardly wait to take it to the post office.