Let’s out-monument the opposition. Import jagged slabs of marble from Macedonia. Etch the faces of martyrs in white relief onto shiny black surfaces. Carve granite into the shape of the eagle or the angel, on top of whose wings the blackbirds will roost. Surround the bases in wreathes of flowers and banners of red and black; red and gold; red, white and blue. A bronze statue at the center of every traffic circle. Position them closer to the border so that the enemy can see our proof. So that those incessant photographers, journalists and tourists flocking to the bridge to memorialize a symbol in their scrapbooks will capture our own memorials in the background as well; dark and tall, obelisks and ovals, proclaiming a dëshmor on one side of the river and a mučenik on the other.
Let’s memorialize the miniature, as well as the monumental, in iron and stone. If you lost a toe instead of a son: it’s time to give that appendage its due. Tiny odes to irreplaceable values will be chiseled into the landscape: "Here lies 12 hours I lost to a hangover / Rakia, you are ruining me." Spend five cents on a tiny piece of metal declaiming the loss of five cents. "We won the battle, but lost our car keys." Innocence, civil rights, patience, autonomy. A sense of humor, goodwill, reasons to live; each with that promising birth and tragic death inscribed below them. "Gone before their time had come" / "How I wish they were still among us" / "You don’t know what you got until it’s been memorialized by someone who was paid a reasonable sum to do so..."
Let’s not wait to remember. Let’s build monuments to the living. Here stands me, doing this, thinking that, all as I am actually doing right now. A perfect and immutable replica of the IS rather than the imperfectly remembered WAS. Let’s strive for that State of purity known as "only a memory" by replacing ourselves with statues or lengthy descriptions of ourselves in this place and time. If we build them well, get the right materials, choose solid ground, pay a little extra for craftsmanship and protect them with a small fence, we won’t have to keep the faith anymore; the memorials can do it for us. Don’t forget to fill out the appropriate forms and grease the appropriate palms at the municipal office. Once the monuments to Now are in place we will be free to leave, knowing that our intentions have been made clear—clearer than we ourselves were capable of making them—and that the monuments will now do the tough work of remaining principled and committed. We can take vacations or, even better, we can move someplace else and start our lives all over. Politics will be better left in the cold stone and metal hands of the monuments. They will simply state their opinions and then stand silently and expectantly; they will not waver or compromise. We won’t have to worry about corruption or fatigue. We may never get what we want, but only because our monuments will have already claimed it in our names. They will wait for what’s theirs forever; we can move to Germany or Pasadena and find out what’s really ours.
Let’s start a new life somewhere else and leave Kosovo to the monuments. A jar will be placed at the border for the dearly departing to toss coins into so that we can all contribute to the hiring of a team of groundskeepers employed to trim the encroaching grass from around our memories and wipe away the droppings from where the blackbirds slept last night.
