Targeter

By Midhat Ajanovic

How easy is it, really, to find one’s way in this confusing world, so unfriendly to an ordinary human who just wants to mow his yard and live in peace, while tragedies and wars multiply around him? When there is no other answer, a strange, perhaps even paranormal, phenomenon is created, shattering everyone and everything in its path.

Targeter is a satirical short novel with elements of SF, originally written in an archaic Bosnian dialect. Inspired by medieval Bosnian myths, the narrative follows a family from East Bosnia through the ages. Certain family members carry a heavy burden – to fight the hatred and anger that distorts all that is human. They do so by enduring all kinds of injustice, and trying not to succumb to provocation. If one of them becomes enraged, Targeter arrives, and disaster looms ...
Being human means not always thinking about your own needs, and the novel explains the consequences of ignoring this fundamental rule.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Style Writes Now
• Release date: Jan 15, 2023
• ISBN: 9781005678746

Midhat Ajanovic

Midhat Ajanovic Ayan is a writer, cinema scholar and cartoonist; he was born in Sarajevo (Bosnia) in 1959. He studied journalism in Sarajevo and practiced film animation at the Zagreb film Studio of Animation (Croatia). Since 1994 he has lived in Gothenburg (Sweden), where he obtained his degree as a Doctor of Philosophy in Film Studies. He teaches at several Swedish film schools (currently at University West in Trollhättan) and writes regularly on film and animation.Ayan has published a large number of books in a variety of genres and in several languages, including ten novels and several monographs on the history and theory of animation, cinema, and comics.He has regularly been a member of international juries and has received awards for his work at important festivals and exhibitions all over the world. At the 20th World Festival of Animated Film, Animafest, in Zagreb in 2010 he received an award for his special contribution to animation studies. In the same year, the Swedish edition of his novel "Portrait Drawn with Coal and Rain" was recognized with an award at the Gothenburg book fair. He also received an award for his book “Film and Comics” at the Sarajevo Book Fair in 2019.

Book preview

Midhat Ajanović

Targeter

Published by Style Writes Now

Smashwords edition 2023

© Midhat Ajanović

Translation: Marija Fekete-Sullivan

Language editor: Juliet Walker

Layout: MIK

All rights reserved.

TARGETER

- An SF story –

Fourth edition

First English edition

CONTENTS

Chapter 1 ……………………………. The Biography of Mujo from Čadovina

Chapter 2 ………………. When They Heard about Targeter for the First Time

Chapter 3 ………………………………… Hikmet, Who Knew Six Languages

Chapter 4 ……………………. The Mysterious Death of Chetnik Trandafilović

Chapter 5 ……………………… A Literary Work Written in a Dobrinja Cellar

Chapter 6 ………………..… Across the Runway with a Knapsack on his Back

Chapter 7 …………………... Meeting Juka, and the Reappearance of Targeter

Chapter 8 …………………………... The World of Football and Eternal Peace

Chapter 9 ……………………………... The Apparition at the World Cup Final

Chapter.10…………………………………………………………… Doomsday

Chapter 1

The Biography of Mujo from Čadovina

Mujo was a truly gentle man. The whole of Čadovina bad-mouthed him, but he did not say a word in response. This was partly because of his nature, and partly because he knew that if he really got angry, a great evil would occur.

* * *

Was he a eunuch or not? That was the question, and the whole village gossiped about it for years, but only behind Mujo’s back. No one dared ask it in his presence, because none would be so bold as to look him in the eye and mock him. They all knew how strong he was. When the village boys competed to see who could harvest the most on those hot days when the yield was collected, the only question was who would come second. Mujo was always ten metres ahead of the others, without breaking a sweat. He could sharpen his scythe before the others had even reached the end of the field.

The same went for throwing stones. Shortish and stocky, with broad shoulders that bulged with muscles and a neck vein that arched like a whip, Mujo would jerk his hand just a little, and his stone would land at least one step ahead of his nearest competition. The greatest achievement for another young man, even if he were two heads taller, was to throw his stone one čeperak* short of Mujo’s. Mujo was not only as strong as an ox, but God had given him strength of heart. He was afraid of nothing. Once, when some drunken Serbs had come to the centre of the village and started to shout provocations, only Mujo had had the courage to grab two stones, one in each hand, and chase the cheeky vlahadija* away. He was alone, facing five of them. And yet all five ran away and didn’t appear in the village again until the war began.

But the village being the village, it found fault with everyone, and it found it with Mujo too.

Since no one ever saw him courting girls or standing under their windows (as was customary at the time), some of the more malicious villagers would speculate at parties that all was not well with Mujo’s family jewels. Many in the village had died convinced that Mujo was a eunuch, because so much time had passed before his child-making ability was proven to be the same as everybody else’s, if not greater. So, what was his problem? Mujo didn’t have time to deal with women, as life had placed a great pile of worries on his back, which caused him no end of trouble. A good many years passed before he could relax a bit, and start to think of marriage.

* * *

Mujo was not yet grown when he was left without a father. His babo* had died of consumption after a great deal of suffering, slowly withering away for half a year of pain inflicted both on him and his family. As the only man left in the household, Mujo had to work twice as much as the others. First, he had to maintain three little fields and several cows, which was all he and his family had; then, he would work as hired labour, selling his strength in his and other villages for grain, oil, cloth, or sometimes a few coins. Whatever he was given, it helped him provide for his elderly mother and two sisters. If they had lived only from the means of their meagre household, they would have had to have begged or died of hunger. So Mujo sacrificed himself, but no one ever heard him complain, nor did a swear word cross his lips. The only change in Mujo’s behaviour was that he learnt how to drink bitter brandies.

* * *

Not two years had passed since his father’s death when Mujo was called up to the army of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. He was forced away, into the unknown, to Vojvodina where everything was flat, and no matter how far the horizon stretched, you couldn’t see hills. Many a Bosnian would come back from there perplexed. Mujo missed the hills – what were you supposed to look at if there weren’t any? – but he also worried about his mother and sisters. He knew that they lacked for things when he wasn’t around, and here he was imprisoned, forced into two years’ service in the army of a country he loved, like the proverbial Bajro* loved his mother.

But Mujo endured it all: he took it in his stride, and came home the same as ever – so soothing you could spread him on a wound like balsam.

* * *

It was once he was back home that the trouble began. His eldest sister had married a Shiptar* and gone with him to Shiptarluk*. No one had dared nor wanted to tell Mujo. Ramadan, the newly acquired brother-in-law, had paid well, and his gold had supported Mujo’s mother and other sister while Mujo had been away. His mother was much older now, and more frail than when Mujo had left, and his younger sister had become prettier, taller and more curvaceous – she was, no doubt, a frequent visitor in the village boys’ dreams. She would have married already if there had been someone to take care of her mother.

That was the first time Mujo’s thoughts had turned to marriage, but he didn’t have time to do anything about it. He hadn’t even had a proper breather from the army, when the big mess began. Yugoslavia broke apart like a melon: the King’s army dispersed in a few days, fleeing the Švabe*. Mujo would have run too, if he had still been in the army. For whom should he have given his life? He didn’t care for either the King or the Švabe.

It soon turned out that the Švabe didn’t have much interest in what had been the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. The only thing that mattered was that no one there bothered them, because the whole of Germany had been overwhelmed by madness and gone to war with everyone: the Russians, the English, the French, the Americans and the rest of the whole wide world. In the circumstances, who would think twice about Mujo’s Čadovina? The whole of Bosnia was annexed to a new state, and now, in place of the Serbian King came the Croatian Poglavnik*.

Same crap, different packaging, thought Mujo, and he would have gone