Dragan Velikić: Belgrade excerpt in English)

Belgrade

The number 2 tram on the circle line stops at the terminal above the docks. The driver steps down from the tram, walks, his gait slow, to the shack, and shuts the door behind him. There are twenty-two passengers on the tram, seven from the city proper, twelve from the wider city area and three who had arrived in Belgrade that morning. The door to the shack opens. The driver comes out and walks toward a single-storey building, the city’s transport control centre. Five minutes later he reappears at the door of the building, a sheet of paper in his hand. The driver’s name is Marko Nikolic. He does not know that at that very moment two other Marko Nikolices, unknown to each other, are sitting on the tram. No one knows how many people named Marko Nikolic live in Belgrade. Or how many Marko Nikolices have found their resting place in the cemeteries of Belgrade.

Translated by Christine Zorić Pribićević
(source: Vilenica Almanac 2019)