Foundation Magazine 2021-2022 | Mount Kelly

ACADEMICS
“Will you help me put it on, Anadriana?”
“Just be careful the waves are growing,
perhaps we should wait till we get to
shore?”
Her words were too late as Salka had
leaned forward to hand over the locket
when a large wave hit the bow of the boat
knocking the locket into the waves. Salka
panicked and she rushed her hands into
the ice-cold water to retrieve it.
“No Salka just leave it, it’s too dangerous,
just leave it!”. Salka had a determination
in her eyes and plunged her arm deep
under the boat. The waves fought back
and Anadriana reached to grab her but
only grasped the cold bitter air. Salka
hit the waves and they carried her with
speed away from Anadriana, out further
and further, the only thing she could do
was to follow the muffled screaming as
she sobbed and shouted against the
sounds of wind and waves.
“Can I get you a drink or perhaps
something to eat?” said Ana in a warm
and comforting voice.
“No, thank you” said the girl timidly.
“So, you think it is your fault your sister is
struggling? Why is that?”
“I just…I just want to tell her none of it
was her fault. She is holding onto too
much guilt. I want her to be in peace.”
“OK. So, you feel like your sister feels
guilty about something that happened in
the past?”
“Why don’t we go on a walk, can drop
you back at your house and we can talk
a little more on the way there, and I can
h a v e a c h a t w i t h y o u r p a re n t s p e r h a p s ? ”
“Yes, I would like that”, said the girl as if
she had finally plucked up the courage to
tell Ana something.
Anadriana, refused to give up and saw
a flash of blonde floating just beyond
reach through the crashing of the waves,
and grabbed a paddle furiously pulling it
through the foam. The Norðurljós shone
and drifted through the sky. Andriana
plunged herself into the freezing water
and struggled to pull her sister into the
boat laying her on the floor.
“Wake up Salka! Please, please”, her
sobbing was drowned out by the sound
of the waves and her tears fell onto
Salka’s face. Salka’s face was white and
cold with blue tainted lips. She grabbed
Salka’s hand, and the fingers slowly
opened one by one, revealing a thin silver
chain. Although, the waves were crashing
and the sound of men calling echoed in
the air, Ana just lay in the boat holding her
sister sobbing beside her, staring up at
the drifting lights.
They walked a little way until Ana said,
“Right, which way now?”
The girl stopped in her tracks and said,
“It’s a long way to Dalvick from here
Anadriana.”
Ana halted and stared at the girl, the
familiarity shook her as she imagined
the girl with blonde hair and bright rosy
cheeks.
“Salka?”
“Yes, yes it’s me”, Salka began to sob
and smile with delight. “You are alive, all
this time and you are alive”
The smile dropped from Salka’s face as
she reached to touch Ana’s shoulder.
“No”, confusion shrouded Ana’s face.
“I am so sorry; it was all my fault I should
never have persuaded mother and
fath…”
“STOP!” said Salka in a slightly angry
voice that would not be expected from
someone of her size. “Just… just, stop.
It was my fault I begged you, I was the
one who wanted to go, I was the one that
dropped the necklace!” Salka reached
out and touched a silver locket hanging
on Ana’s neck. “We don’t have the time,
Ana.”
Suddenly a group of young boys came
cycling right through the sisters pushing
Ana onto the pavement without looking
back. “What is going on with the people
in New York.” said Ana.
“It’s not the people,” said Salka timidly.
“It’s you Ana. It was last week, the
accident... the car just came so fast.” She
sobbed as Ana fingertips drifted down a
scar that slipped down the side of her ear
right down to her spine.
“No! No, I can’t be, they cut me out the
car, I came out of the hospital, I’ve been
to work. I made it, I made it right?”
Salka embraced her sister as the sun cut
daggers through the skyline.
SASA ZIVALJEVIC, YEAR 12
WINNER OF CONWAY MASEFIELD
PRIZE
ONLY SEVENTEEN
Today’s western society seems to be
amazed by the perks of being young and
rebellious in the 90s, often wishing to
take some sort of temporary time travel
machine through today’s fashion heavily
inspired by vintage clothing from that
period. As much as I enjoy a good old
pair of overly low wasted jeans, or a track
of Sinead O’Connor and Abba’s Dancing
queen, my 90s are not the same as those
stereotypical 90s that we seem to glorify.
Sometimes I wish I was that exact ‘’young
and sweet’’ dancing queen; I wish I was
seventeen with a beer in my left hand
and my right arm wrapped around some
guy I would probably not remember the
next day. I usually travel to that time with
a cloudy mind pretending that I had that
kind of an experience. Meanwhile, the
truth I willingly push aside is that I was a
seventeen-year-old trapped in a conflict,
but not the one you would expect in any
high school melodrama, but the one
where that beer in my left hand was the
last crumble of bread, and that one-night
stand wrapped around my right arm,
was my dying father, breathing in his last
breath.
July 1995, where hot and humid
weather was demolished by cold blood
murder. Where summer was corrupted
by winter. Where everything I loved
about my hometown of Srebrenica, was
turned into gut wrenching melancholy
of horror, violence, and genocide. Upon
the separating of Former Yugoslavia, the
constant tension between the former
members of a seemingly united Republic,
was increasing in the last decade of 20th
century. Suddenly, from the country
which was ruled by brotherhood,
equality, and anti-fascism, has turned
into a society where neighbours killed
neighbours, where family was betrayed
by its own. This idea of ethnic cleansing
has followed us through this war, but
it was never something that I thought I
would find myself tangled into, since
my teenage self could never imagine
that one would ever have the courage
to kill another, solely because they had
different beliefs, different passport, or a
different dialect. My teenage innocence
was finally ruined that July, when most
of the male inhabitants of my hometown,
simply because they were Muslims,
were hanged, shot, or tortured, in hope
to free the country of people that could
pass the ‘’betrayal’’ gene. 8000 souls
have unwillingly left this blighted world
that summer, leaving our souls forever
damaged by trying to escape that
daunting question of -why us, why now,
why ever?
Not once have I thought that in this
patriarchal world ruled by testosterone, I
would be saved by purely a fact that I am
a woman. That twisted reality has saved
me from being brutally killed in the neverending
lines in front of what was once
known as a supermarket, that became
a dead body shop. Never have I thought
that I would feel grateful that I am not
included in actions that men were taking
part in, since not one feminist bone in my
body could ever bear to be the reason for
my life to end that way. They searched
for men- in any shape or form, any age,
any physical ability. My mind was filled
with these rotten images of pre-school
boys being tortured, isolated, and then
shot in front of their first crushes, sisters,
and mothers. I have a deep memory of
my Chemistry teacher, that surprisingly
made me fall in love with whatever those
isotopes were representing, picking up
the rifle from one of the soldiers and
shooting his former pupil. I guess not
even a perfect grade in your Chemistry
exam can save you from the teacher that
believes in a different God. At the other
end of the blood spilling spectrum, the
greatest fear and terror provoked the
biggest sense of unity. People were no
strangers to helping even when they
needed help, singing in shelters, carrying
the wounded. I suppose that fear of
death is the ultimate glue that holds us
together, even when we are stretched to
our breaking point.
It was in their nature to segregate ussome
of us were Bosnian Muslims and
some Bosnian Christians, but as the
hours were passing, as lines in that
death march were getting longer, as
my life’s clock was ticking with a sick
amount of uncertainty, there was only
one segregation in question- those who
live and those who die. It was as simple
as that. No crosses, no mosques, no
cathedrals, or some kinds of prayers, no
‘’god is good’’ tattoos, but only poked
numbers on our starving arms. Our
ear lobes were vibrating, not from any
Stravinsky or those guys called Beatles,
but from falling bombs aiming to crush
everything that we are and everything that
we have in common. You would assume
that after all the dividing, that simple ‘’we’’
would have lost its meaning, but ironically,
its meaning turned into something that
no pronoun can fully describe.
ACADEMICS
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