Mirko and Klementinka: Racing Against the Tide

When Klementinka and Mirko are little children, the river floods. Some of the villagers join hands to build a wall of clay and sandbags, but it only lasts for a few days.

One day, when Klementinka is four years old and Mirko is three, their father Diko tells them that they must go to the village square after dinner. The sun is very low in the sky, and Klementinka wonders why they must go out so late. But her mother Sueka looks worried and her father's eyes are hard when he says "You must do as I say," so they obey.

When they arrive at the square they see everyone else in the village there too. The adults look frightened, and some of them cry softly. They sit on the ground in groups of two or three, holding each other's hands tightly. Then Diko walks over to Mirko and Klementinka. He kneels down in front of them. When he speaks his voice sounds strange, like he's trying not to cry.

"This is your fault," he says slowly, looking at Mirko with hard eyes. "I told you that you were not allowed to play by the river." He turns to Klementinka now and points a finger at her nose. "And this is your fault too!" His words are angry and loud, and the people around them gasp quietly.

Klementinka bursts into tears now and she cannot stop crying no matter how hard she tries. "But Papa," she says between sobs, "we did not play by the river! We played by the well!" She turns to Mirko for support but he just stares at her with wide eyes. He does not say anything either. She begins sobbing harder than ever before.

Diko snorts loudly and gets up off his knees. "That's right," he says scornfully, "you played by the well instead." He bends down again so that his face is close to Mirko's ear, causing him to jump back slightly in surprise. "Well I'm sorry if my son doesn't have enough sense to stay away from dangerous places," he whispers harshly into Mirko's ear before standing up again. Then he grabs both Klementinka and Mirko by the wrist and drags them away from everyone else towards their house at the edge of town by the riverbank. As they walk he keeps shaking his head angrily and muttering things under his breath like: "Stupid river" or "What were you thinking?" or even: "Fucking God." When they arrive home Sueka meets them outside and immediately starts yelling at Diko about how mean he was being to poor Mirko behind their backs while dragging them all over town like that without any warning whatsoever when they could've just walked home normally in the first place but now everyone will know what kind of father he is behind his back even though none of it was true anyway because neither Klementinka nor Mirko had been bad kids ever since they were babies let alone today especially if for example you count yesterday when both of them came home from school with perfect grades or when Klementinka made an extra pot of soup last night which everybody thought was delicious even though it wasn't even supposed to turn out that way anyways which goes to show how much better than everybody else she was already at cooking which didn't surprise anybody because Sueka was always telling people how great she was anyways which wasn't fair because she never said anything about herself which meant that everybody probably thought that she was terrible at cooking even though if you asked anyone who'd eaten at their house after Diko had gotten home from work you'd find out that it was probably every bit as good as anything Sueka made anyways but no one ever asked because people are terrible sometimes especially if they have nothing better to do with their time than gossip about other people who don't have anything better to do with their time than gossip about other people who don't have anything better to do with their time than--