Pitaju_me_svi -

The phrase (Everyone is asking me) is a heavy burden to carry. It’s the sound of a thousand voices pressing against a single secret, the relentless curiosity of a small town, or perhaps the echoing lyrics of a song that haunts a man who no longer knows the answer himself.

"Marko, ," whispered Marija, the woman he had almost married before he vanished. Her eyes were softer than the others, but the curiosity was just as sharp. "They ask if you found what you were looking for. They ask if you ever thought of us." pitaju_me_svi

He walked to the center of the room. "The truth is, I didn't go away to become something. I went away because I didn't know how to stay. I spent twenty years looking for a place where no one knew my name, where no one would ask me anything. I worked on ships, I built houses in the mountains, I sat in squares in cities where I didn't speak the language." The phrase (Everyone is asking me) is a

"You all keep saying the same thing," Marko said, his voice low but steady. "'' You ask where I went, what I did, and why I’m back. You want to know if I’m a hero or a failure." Her eyes were softer than the others, but

"Marko, ," said Luka, an old school friend who had never left the village. "They say you made a fortune in South America. They say you lost it all in a gamble. Which is it?"

By the third day, the rumor mill was at a boiling point. In the local konoba , where the scent of grilled sardines and cheap red wine hung thick in the air, Marko sat in the corner. He wanted to be invisible, but in a place where everyone knows your grandfather’s middle name, invisibility is a luxury. One by one, they approached.