Minut? I had to laugh: after holding forth for so long on how postmodernism had broken with a more traditional approach to language and form, here I was considering a text to be a reliable source of information, prepared to believe in words. Besides, what could I say in such a text when I knew nothing? I had seen someone who was, perhaps, now dead, and except for that unconfirmed death, I had no other information. That meant I had only one choice: no longer to wait for things to happen or not happen to me, but to make them happen. It was high time, I thought, for all the diverse streams to become a single course, for everything to become something, no matter how unconnected it appeared, or to finally dissolve into nothing, a marvelous solution that would offer complete freedom, and was, I had to say right off the bat, the least likely. And so the next day, armed with a pad and colored pencils, I set out for a detailed inspection of the Zemun market. It was a beautiful spring day, pleasantly warm, with clouds racing across the sky, and the market, when I arrived, swarming with people. I intended to cover as many streets as possible, looking carefully around, to record all the spots where I saw the sign made of the circle and triangles, as well as all the places where there were possible traces of the sign. I had to bear in mind the likelihood that most of the signs had not been drawn using permanent materials, so those drawn in chalk, or perhaps in crayon, were likely to have disintegrated. For instance, the signs I had seen earlier on Zmaj Jovina Street were no longer visible, which didn't mean that they played no role in the overall constellation of signs. Once I had completed the list, I intended to draw their locations on a map of Zemun and by so doing gain additional insight or a sort of key for my future moves. To be frank, I had no notion of any further moves, but I did have the hope that they would take form in and of themselves or that they would suggest themselves in a clear light the moment I made a map of the signs. I walked toward the market along Beogradska Street, where I found no traces of any kind. I turned into Mornarska, took two or three steps, spun around and went back. I obeyed a murky feeling, I said later to Marko, that I would find no signs there. So I went back to Beogradska Street and stepped into the bustle of the market. I passed by the stalls that offered the most varied merchandise, items of food, hygiene, electrical and plumbing equipment, men's and women's underwear, wooden spoons and three-legged wooden stools, coffee and detergents. Behind them were the vegetable stalls. I dove for a moment into the crowd, then came back to the first row of stalls, where I bought some chocolate. If there was a sign inscribed anywhere in that part of the marketplace, it was pointless to look for it, so when I arrived at the end of the first section of the market I turned off onto Gospodska Street and headed toward the quay. On the quay, across from the Venezia, I saw a few chalk drawings on the sidewalk, one resembled a spiral and the other a tangled ball, which had nothing to do with my signs. My signs? I am always amazed at the ease with which we adopt things, even when there is no question of ownership, because if there is something that was not mine, it was those signs, that much, at least, is clear. I looked to the left, I looked to the right, then turned left toward the corner of Zmaj Jovina Street. Here, a few weeks earlier, I had come across the first sign, hidden under a button. I stopped and entered that fact in the notebook. I wrote in black: the black was to mark the absence, or rather the absence of a presence; I planned red for entering newfound signs, blue for the possible vestiges of signs, while green was to serve for lingering vestiges that may not have been drawn as parts of signs. There was nothing at the spot where the black button had lain, just as there was nothing on the steps where I had seen the sign when I leaned over to pick up the woman's potato. Now too the street was littered, so I had to pause at every step, shove aside crumpled newspapers, pick through heaps of trash, lift plastic bags. At the corner of Gajeva, at the foot of a traffic sign, I came across an unfinished triangle, drawn in chalk, which might have been part of a smaller, inner triangle, inscribed in a larger triangle. I jotted this down in the notebook, in blue this time. Not far from the remnant of the triangle was an arrow pointing to the opposite side of the market, to Dositejeva and Karamatina streets. As children we used to leave signs for friends: by following the arrows they would find where we were waiting for them. I walked down Gajeva and soon came across a new arrow, pointing to the left, to Dositejeva Street. I saw yet another arrow, and then a boy who, a little farther along, was drawing a new arrow on the pavement. When he saw me, he ran off. He shouted something, without turning, then ducked into an entranceway. I didn't even try to follow him. I went back to Gajeva Street, and as I passed by the old foundry, I finally caught sight of the first real sign. After that it got easier. From Gajeva I went into Karamatina and walked down its one side to the quay, came back along the other side to Muhar, and then along Glavna Street to Zmaj Jovina. By then I had recorded six or seven signs and several possible traces, including one triangle with a dot in the middle, which, I suspected, represented something different, but it was easier for me to consider it a remnant of a sign to which someone, either by chance or on purpose, had added a dot. Then I walked along Zmaj Jovina Street. On the fence around the construction site behind the theater, in a sheltered spot, I noticed four signs, as if someone was practicing drawing them. At the large wooden gate, where there had been the poster advertising tai chi classes, a much larger poster was up, announcing a concert of folk music. I studied the poster carefully; I found nothing; a part that was smudged suggested a trace of lipstick, the imprint of a kiss someone had planted on the cheek of a performer. I peeked into the passageway that led to the inner courtyard, went over to the bench, checked the water pump and the barberry bushes. No traces there. Back I went into the street, passed down one side and then up the other, and ended at the quay. I found another seven or eight signs along Zmaj Jovina, as well as two traces, both by the first market stalls. Before I went into Gospodska Street I circled around the Harbormaster's. The gallery was closed, half dark, and when I pressed my nose against the glass door, on the facing wall, next to a photograph, I thought I could see the sign, but when I looked again a moment later, the wall was an unblemished white. I continued walking and recording with the different colored pencils, and when I got hungry, I went into a bakery and had some burek. The burek was greasy; I had to lick my fingers. I licked them one by one, ignoring the woman behind the counter. Then I bought a crescent roll with jam and asked for a glass of water. The water was lukewarm. I sipped at it and leafed through my notebook. I still had to go through Pobeda Square, and I mustn't forget Piljarska Street, the narrowest of the streets around the market but full of handy places to leave signs. This proved true: I found as many as six on Piljarska, drawn at precise seventy-centimeter intervals. By now it was late afternoon, fewer people at the market, time to head home. Clouds were gathering in the sky, rain was on the way. I stopped at the stationery store on Zmaj Jovina and asked for a map of Zemun. They had only a commercial map of the city, with the stores and businesses drawn in, but it was large and comprehensive, and I was happy with it, especially because in the upper-right-hand corner it had a magnified insert of the city center. My feet were stinging by the time I got home. I spread open the map on the kitchen table and began marking the places where I had seen the signs. The part around the market, I noticed, consisted of nine different-sized blocks, of which one, the one that came out to the quay, bordered by Zmaj Jovina and Karamatina, was in the shape of a triangle. The number nine may have had special significance, but I didn't dare call Dragan Mišović again. I could have asked Jaša Alkalaj, of course; after all, numbers are numbers, whether it is mathematics or the Kabbalah. I leafed through the notebook and marked the dots in different colors. Most were red, a few were blue, three or four green, and three were black. Once I had put in the last dot, I stepped back to see the map from a distance. I didn't know what I would see, I didn't know what I expected to see, I didn't actually see anything. The dots, dense in some spots and sparse in others, surrounded all nine blocks; only the middle, which was roughly at the place where Gospodska Street ran into Omladinski Square, was empty. I was disappointed, I admit. I had expected that this pattern would immediately suggest things to me I hadn't known, but it told me nothing, though perhaps it was speaking an unfamiliar language. Once more I checked everything carefully, and then I rolled a joint, lit it, and walked over to the window. I looked to the left, I looked to the right, then straight ahead. The window of the pharmacy was already lit; not a single car was parked in front of it; I could take a deep breath, inhale in peace. Slowly, deeply, I inhaled, watching night conquer the sky and felt the cannabis rise in my body: my knees softened, my stomach sagged, my heart beat faster, my eyelids drooped, and when I felt it behind my forehead, I went to lie down. That night I dreamed a strange dream. I regret not writing it down right away; with time it faded, and now, no matter how hard I try, I can summon only details and cannot, for the life of me, reconstruct the whole thing. Nothing particular happened in it, as far as I recall, and one could say I was dreaming emotions more than events. I remember, for instance, that I dreamed I was sleeping and that I was waking up but couldn't open my eyes. I wake up, in the dream, because someone is sitting by my bed, leaning over me, and staring at my closed eyes. Since I am dreaming that my eyelids are shut, everything I see in the dream is dark. I am awake in the dream but I don't dare open my eyes, I'm fearful of what I'll see, and I remember saying to myself in my dream, Maybe these are ordinary human eyes. Then a voice, right by my ear, says: There is no such thing as ordinary human eyes. And then: Each eye is a story unto itself. Then I was really awake, unsure of who had heard that voice or who was feeling fearful. I dreamed the same dream several times that night, and in the morning I could barely stand up. Go back to bed, I said to my reflection in the mirror. The reflaction didn't answer, and even if it had, it wouldn't have helped, because that morning I had to edit the piece for my