On Saturday, I set off for Banja Luka. Yanko and my brother were traveling with me. Yanko was going to visit his parents, who were at their summer house, and my brother had been staying with me for a few days. He had been visiting clubs with Petar and they were making some of their own plans.
We first went out for a few drinks, and by the time we left for Banja Luka, it was already Sunday. At first, my brother talked a lot, but it all sounded like “lorem ipsum” to me. We reached Ruma and the intersection with the traffic light that was always empty at night, always red. The devil would kindly invite me to pass through the red light every time. It was hard to slow down. No cars ever came from either side at night. In the end, I could see that no one was around and that I could pass freely, but about twenty meters further down, at the gas station, police officers were often waiting. We waited for the green light as always, and sure enough, the police were there again.
A few minutes later, we were on the highway. Yanko and my brother had fallen asleep before the highway. In silence, I passed by the row of poplar trees on the left side of the road, right before the freeway entrance. They woke up when we reached the border. There was no traffic. We passed in just a few minutes. Now Yanko started talking about his high school friends, Lazar and Marin. Coins from the toll gate rattled on the dashboard, and Yanko didn’t talk “lorem ipsum” anymore, so the atmosphere became livelier.
In second grade, Marin had borrowed a Nintendo cartridge from Lazar. Then he didn’t return it for several months. Lazar asked when he would return it, and Marin said he didn’t plan on returning it. Their friendship continued, but the issue with the cartridge remained. Lazar took the opportunity to ask for the cartridge when they stopped by Marin’s house after school, and Marin’s parents hadn’t come home from work yet.
“Marin, aren’t you going to return the cartridge?”
“No.”
Lazar pushed the books off the shelf in the living room with both hands. One shelf was empty, and the books were scattered on the floor.
“Aren’t you going to return it?”
“No.”
Lazar knocked the books off the other shelf.
“Are you insane? What are you doing?”
“Are you returning the cartridge, Marin?”
“I’m never returning it.”
Lazar ripped the curtain.
“Are you sure?”
“You’re not getting the cartridge. Get out.”
Marin knocked over a flower pot. Then they started fighting. Yanko intervened and slowly took Lazar out of the room.
“We lost touch after the high school. We didn’t hang out often until they found me when I fell asleep in the park. And while we weren’t meeting, I had this routine with Marin—whoever sees the other first, hits them in the shoulder with a fist as hard as they can. When someone hits me in the shoulder, I know I’ve met Marin. Once at Spens, by the Vojvođanska bank, someone hit me, and I saw stars. I turned around, and Marin was throwing me a fist bump, hugging me. That same winter, I was passing by Danube Park, and a snowball hit me in the head—again, Marin. He was laughing and he invited me for coffee. A few months later, I ran into him at the pool. He had just arrived and hadn’t seen me. He was standing by the pool. I ran up and pushed him into the water. That was my revenge for the snowball. And Lazar… I don’t know. We always have plenty of topics, but his story is somehow strange. It’s like we’re still in high school. Well, somehow, I don’t know, he’s just immature.”
Then my brother started talking about going out with Petar. They were at some pub with live music. They knew the keyboard player. They agreed that when they sat with the girls, the keyboard player would announce over the microphone that the driver of a car, of a specific brand and model with a random license plate number, needed to move their car because one of the guests couldn’t park. They always made sure the car was expensive. Then my brother would get up and say he was going to move the car quickly.
My thoughts drifted to the game and all the errors I hadn’t managed to fix before the trip, which were still bugging me.
On Monday, I went with my uncle to the exam. I kept him company in the hallway until the professor showed up. When he did, he called us both into his office.
“Professor, I’m not taking the exam, I’m just keeping my uncle company.”
“Come in, colleague, we need some public presence for the exam.”
We both entered.
“Vladimir… wait, a colleague has made a request for you.“
“Professor, I didn’t ask for any connections. Maybe it’s for someone else.”
“No, it’s for you, colleague. Definitely for you. Here’s your name and surname.”
“But I haven’t been at the university for fifteen years. I haven’t seen anyone. Can you tell me which of your colleagues made the request for me?”
“Your classmate, colleague. She asked me to let you pass, but you didn’t even show up for the exam. That was back in ‘92 or a little earlier.”
“How did she make the request? What did she say?”
“Well, she said you were a good student, who often help others, but that you didn’t have time to study but your knowledge was overall great, and so on.”
“But I don’t know about that. Why did she say that?”
“Maybe she liked you, colleague.”
“Who told you that, Professor?”
“I can’t remember the name now.”
“Well, try to remember, Professor, it’s important.”
“I can’t. Why is that important now?”
“Well, maybe something will come of it now, Professor.”
We left the university without knowing the name of my uncle’s classmate. The good news was that he passed the exam.
Today, we were supposed to release the game for open beta. That means it would be available for everyone to play. We postponed it for at least seven more days. It’s unbelievable what errors our test users find and how many there are. Errors in the text (we call them “keyboard lapses”), errors in alignment, errors related to combat or a building in the game, calculations with money or energy, bugs we would never have imagined could exist…
