Umrlice - Podgorica

“He was alive when I printed that,” Mira said quietly. “But he wasn’t living. The city knew it. The old men playing chess in the park knew it. They’d walk past him and whisper, ‘ Enough died already, Marko. ’ A year later, he tried to be a baker. He married a woman from Nikšić. For a while, he was alive again.”

Mira gestured to the back room, where shelves rose to the ceiling, lined with bell jars. Hundreds of them. Thousands. Each one holding a death notice for a person who was still breathing. umrlice podgorica

The cold November rain had been falling on Podgorica for three straight days, turning the streets of the Stara Varoš into slick, dark mirrors. Under the dim glow of a flickering streetlamp near the Ribnica Bridge, a faded sign read . “He was alive when I printed that,” Mira said quietly

Mira tapped the glass of the bell jar with a yellowed fingernail. “First notice: ‘ Marko Kovač, beloved father, soldier. ’ That was the war. He died in the hills, they said. But he walked back into Podgorica three months later, his uniform gone, his eyes like two burnt holes. He came to me and said, ‘Mira, print a retraction.’ I told him, ‘I don’t print retractions. Only umrlice.’ So he paid me to print a second one.” The old men playing chess in the park knew it

She reached under the counter and pulled out a leather-bound book, flipping to a brittle page. The second notice read: ‘Marko Kovač, no longer a soldier, died again on a Tuesday afternoon in a rented room above the bus station. He is survived by the silence he left behind.’

“You don’t understand,” Mira said, sliding the glass across the counter. “In Podgorica, we don’t just print when you die. We print who you were when you died. And sometimes… people get it wrong.”

Mira clinked her glass against his. “And to the ones who have—but keep walking the streets anyway.”