Dragomir Raskovic

Every morning I walk the same path along the Danube. Not because I’m nostalgic, but because the water keeps me honest. There’s a rhythm to it, a cold, steady indifference that makes sense to me. Some mornings, I see a heron standing so still it could be carved from stone. I used to fish here with my brother before he moved to Canada. Now it’s just me and the river.

Last Thursday, I found an old key in my coat pocket. A small, brass thing, rusted at the edges. I didn’t recognize it, but it stirred something in me. I put it on the table and stared at it over coffee. It sat there like a question. I called my daughter, asked her if she remembered any old boxes or drawers from her childhood, but she was distracted, rushing to get her boy ready for school. “Maybe it’s from the cellar,” she said. I haven’t been down there in years.

I’m 59, born and raised in Belgrad, Serbia. I’ve lived in the same apartment in Dorćol since the late '80s, when the streets felt heavier and the nights were louder. The key stayed on the table all day. I didn’t touch it again until evening. I went to the cellar after dinner, flashlight in one hand, key in the other. The air smelled of damp concrete and dust. A line of old paint cans leaned like drunkards against the wall. And in the corner, beneath a sheet, was the wooden chest my father had made.

The lock was stiff, but the key turned. Inside were a few notebooks, leather-bound, yellowed with time. His handwriting, thin and upright. A letter addressed to me, dated 1987. “You probably won’t open this unless something odd leads you here,” he wrote. “That’s how our family works.” I sat on the steps and read the whole thing. Nothing dramatic—no secrets, just thoughts. Fragments of a man who’d never learned how to speak plainly, except on paper.

I didn’t cry. I just sat there a while, listening to the pipes tick and the city breathe above me.