Two American fighter planes take off from their aircraft carrier stationed in the Adriatic. Their mission: surveillance and interception of possible aircrafts violating the airspace of Bosnia and Herzegovina. They fly over burned villages and towns, over camps hidden in the forests, over besieged Sarajevo. They do not detect any hostile activity in the area of operation. It is a rather calm day. But they do not see everything. For instance, what children do for fun in Sarajevo.

The pages showing children’s play, at the same time familiar and eerie, are just the beginning of the story “Mačka” (“Cat”) included in the comic book entitled Bosanske basne (Bosnian Fables).

Source: Lavrič, Tomaž. Bosanske basne [Bosnian Fables] (Zagreb: Naklada Fibra, 2006), reproduced with the author’s permission.

Translation: Iva Jelusic