Between Exhaustion and Cure — Part III
Speculative Fabulations: Krvavica
by wit[h]nessing
Krvavica: Architecture of Cure
02:00 a.m., April 28th 2042, Day 1.
Arriving in Krvavica, a hidden village on the sun-drenched Adriatic coast of Croatia. Being part of the Makarska Riviera, it nestles on the slopes of Mount Biokovo, known for its beautiful pebble beaches, clear blue waters and lush pine trees. I refrain from imagining the village, I leave the words into their own realm. Navigation gives a notice to turn left and I find myself on a completely dark curvy downslope. In a few minutes, I can already hear the sea.
Amidst somnolence of the night, a circular structure stands, casting light to slender silhouettes of surrounding trees reaching skyward and forming a protective canopy. A retreat building—another temporary home of mine, is surrounded by the fluidity of the forest, the air rich with the scent of lavender and sea breeze. I check in with the assistance of a man who mumbles words and has his feet halfway into slumber. In a room covered with wooden panels and loaded with warm dim lights, I fall asleep wondering how the night will transform into day in a few hours.
Early morning. All I can think about is coffee. Funny, isn’t it? The utmost significance of basic pleasures and needs to our most essential tasks. The first sight from the window: The mountain, standing still, diminishing me. Caffeine first! The first object that comes out of my suitcase is a moka pot—the one I bought in Sweden many years ago but still serving me as a truthful morning companion. I love how petite but functional it is, the sound it makes, different each time yet consistently characteristic. With a cup adorned with red flowers I step out to a balcony. The garden below is full of white pebbles and olive trees—overexposed, oversaturated. It’s damn hot, yet, a blue swimming pool is oddly empty, almost deserted. Going downstairs, I find my spot under the shade of an olive tree, a convenient viewpoint to observe the mountain. The familiar sound, which I’m almost sure I’ve also heard last night—either in dream or reality, distracts my attention. Two musical hoots and the sound ceases. Another distractor, Chrysolina fastuosa, also known as the dead-nettle leaf beetle, climbs onto my knee. Mesmerised, I gaze at the iridescent colours of the beetle, shifting with each slooow subtle movement. Enough with these idle musings. I don’t want to be late for the meeting.
The group of investigators gathered on the spot is much larger than I anticipated. Small round of self introductions between all serious people—structural engineers, architects, geologists, physicists, environmental scientists, biologists, psychologists, government officials, urban planners, electricians, linguists, anthropologists, a photographer, and myself, a historian. The air is quite eerie yet funny. “The building which came alive and started rotating around its own axis.” How could this be? I wonder, as I find myself inside of a stable, circular building. The meeting begins, I scan the room. The geologist, a woman in her fifties, speaks first, touching upon possible peculiarities of the terrain. She mentions minor tremors that have been detected not that far ago, yet too subtle to cause such an anomaly. The physicist follows, discussing potential magnetic fields, while the architect sketches the building’s unique structural elements on a board. Others, including myself, remain silent. The mutual agreement is to break into smaller groups as a starting point for investigating different aspects of the building within our respective professional fields. After the gathering, just before lunch, I am headed towards the reception.
– “Hello, I’d like to send a postcard abroad,” I say.
– “In this world, we no longer write postcards,” she answers and continues to scribble something in her vintage notebook, unbothered. I step outside, the sun now high in the sky. The mountain looms above, as I follow a circular path around the building to reach a canteen.
Lunch is served in the communal dining hall. Long tables stretch across the room, adorned with plates of local delicacies. Visitors of every age sit together, chatting and clinking silverware. What might they be expecting from this place? For another round of coffee consumption, I find an empty seat at a table by the window. While taking a leisurely stroll through the village soon afterwards, I found a quiet spot by the harbour. Fishing boats sway gently in the breeze, and sea creatures make bubbles in the transparent water.
Chatting with a local fisherman about this and that, I discovered that the hoots I hear come from a small species of owl—çuk in Croatian, the Eurasian scops owl in English.
– “For the ones who know how to listen, it is said, çuk can hint at deeper, hidden truths of the village,” the fisherman says.
– “I see,” I answer.
– “But some also call the owl the village idiot,” he adds.
– “Huh.”
– “Not everything, or everyone, is as they appear,” he smiles.
Turning pensive, I walk back to the retreat. The sun begins to set, casting a golden hue over the building. The maid who cleans the corridor just outside my room tells me as soon as I smile at her:
– “Some nights, certain children watching TV shrunk down and found themselves transported inside a television that had transformed into a city built from transistors and relays. In the mornings, they remembered their adventures vividly, yet no one believed them. A few children remained in this transistor world. As they entered the smallest dimension, Rikard Marasović was there, as a baby.”
– “Who is Rikard Marasović?” I ask, as if everything else was clear.
– “They said the building grew into a giant pacifier... for a giant BABY! Then the baby Marasović lost it and is still restlessly looking for the object, just like his old ancestor who had a weird obsession with round objects,” she answers. And suddenly, a rock falls from the roof. Very unusual—as if it had come from another planet. Why another planet? What is happening? Is it me, or is it this place? That night I dreamt that a house of labour was set on fire and everybody just set and watched the flames.
03:12 a.m., April 29th 2042, Day 2.
Lying in my bed at night, thinking: “What can I do here? Give me a signal.” I have already spent two days here but it didn’t go as I expected. I wonder where the military remnants are. I’ve heard that they are occupied by birds and animals. I am planning to see it. The telephone in my room rings. “Komunikacijski kanal,” says a sticker on the phone. I pick it up:
– “Hello?”
– “Hi.”
– “Hello? I can’t hear you.”
– “Hi…”
– “Connection is pretty bad here, maybe the walls are too thick?”
– “Hi! Can you hear me?”
– “Hello?”
– “Are you still there?”
08:05 a.m., April 30th 2042, Day 3.
Two adolescent boys are sitting in their room within a circular building. From time to time, they approach the window, finding solace in watching the sea, its rhythmic movements calming each time. They observe bubbles created by sea creatures, chatting about the pervasive circularity that surrounds them—in bubbles, in the architecture of their building, and in the patterns of their thoughts. They seek connections between these organic and man-made forms. After a while, they notice two planets appearing in the dawn sky, prompting one to call out to the other.
– “Do you think they will ever collide?” one asks, the other gazing silently at the horizon.
– “I wonder if there’s any form of human existence on those planets,” the first continues. “Are they safe and sound?”
– “I don’t know. There must be so many uncertainties about them,” replies the second. “They certainly raise many questions, but one thing is certain—there’s a strong sense of playfulness surrounding them, don’t you feel?”
– “Please remind me of this idea of playfulness and circularity that we experience here with other children. Perhaps these two planets could be seen as floating machines guiding us around the Adriatic Sea...” murmurs the first, as if in a dream.
– “Why limit it to just the Adriatic? What if they’re inviting people from across the galaxy to inhabit them? What if they seek to form a community that values the significance of the number three?”
Then they spot a girl seated on white cliffs—ethereal, breathtaking—gazing at something, transfixed, almost frozen like a statue. Secretly, the boys glance at a mirror on the wall, carefully observing themselves and wondering if there was also something about their appearance that intrigued others. In that moment, one of the boys whispers,
– “I want to be naked like her, but I don’t mean my body...”
Still yawning and staggering, I make my way to open the curtains. This time, the view from the window shows the sea. Soon I must attend the gathering of our working group. To uncover any historical records or folklore that might explain this phenomenon, we planned to comb through old documents within the local archive located within the backside of the building. Contemplation about what we might find there: medical reports, diaries, letters, drawings and photographs.
The search was scheduled after lunch. The procedure for accessing the files turned out surprisingly easy, as if everything had been prearranged. One of the first reports I stumble upon, dating back to 1781—a date significantly older than the building’s presumed construction—details a peculiar arrival:
One day, to the facility arrived a creature bearing a human-like form. I describe her as “human-like” because, although she possesses the full capacity for human behaviour, she sometimes reverts to an animal-like state, utterly bereft of speech. These transitions, as we observe, typically occur during the night or in moments of solitude. On several occasions, it also happened when the creature was near other guests with whom she had formed a peculiar bond. Despite numerous efforts by doctors and scientists to rationally explain this phenomenon, it remains, to this day, an enigma. Once, she shouted out to me with tears in her eyes: “I don’t want to grow up! And I don’t want to learn how to count! Leave me alone! How can I exist in a world that is a cruel place like this?! It makes me wish to be a dead-nettle leaf beetle!” Other than this episode, it is noteworthy that the creature appears entirely undisturbed by her condition.
– “Was this place once a psychiatric hospital? I wonder how many people recovered here? Who once enjoyed this view from this very chair?” I ask.
– “I don’t know. But what I do know is that the chair is broken; it needs immediate repair!” responds a man in a white shirt, and we laugh.
Another significant discovery was a diary filled with scribbles and intricate architectural drawings. As I leafed through its pages, I read aloud:
I described the building to an acquaintance, and his first idea was to extend a membrane over it like a trampoline. When fully extended, he claimed, it could theoretically enable time travel.
– “Has this ever been done? In the past, or perhaps in the future?” asks Pavle, a young anthropologist from Croatia.
– “I don’t know,” I shrug.
In the next few pages, there’s an envelope with a letter inside:
Dear acquaintance, I am writing to you in the hope that you can help me return to my proper time. I have travelled in every direction one could imagine; circular was my favourite. At the moment, I am not even sure if I am in the present. Best regards!
Another letter reveals the following:
I wish I had listened to your words: Don’t go down to the military remnants. You will be lost and never found, never able to turn around.
Could this be the diary of Rikard Marasović? What might be the connection between the building, the transistor world, and the lostness in time? Why am I unable to find the military remnants that have resurfaced in my investigation so many times?
– “Look!” calls Pavle abruptly, handing over a photograph. It is hard to tell which period the photograph is from—it looks both old and futuristic. Amid the vast expanse of the Adriatic sea, dark and restless under a brooding sky, a peculiar object hovers in suspension, as if defying the natural order. It is a porous, almost spongy stone-like ship, its surface a labyrinth of tiny craters and irregular hollows.
Pavle, being a local to this area, recalls a vivid memory from his childhood. As a boy, he used to sit on the rocky cliffs overlooking the sea, listening to the elderly villagers recount strange occurrences and tales. One story that captivated him described an event witnessed by generations past: a serene evening when the sea shimmered with an otherworldly glow, and a majestic, stone-like ship emerged from the depths. Pavle marvels at how such stories shaped his fascination with history, cultural narratives, and the mysteries that lie beneath the surface of everyday life. As he shares the story, the expressions on the faces of his colleagues in the room betray a mix of curiosity and scepticism.
– “Could such a ship really exist?” one colleague muses aloud, breaking the silence that follows Pavle’s narrative.
– “Well, legends often have kernels of truth,” Pavle responds diplomatically.
The sun sinks lower. My head spins with thoughts of the day’s findings, but one thing is certain: stories of a mystical floating ship, rumoured to possess strange powers, have surfaced. It’s a lead, I think, while a melody lingers in my mind:
We are here,
after all this time,
after all spaces and places
have collapsed,
decomposed,
and been rebirthed,
…
We are here,
but not quite now,
fragments of all the “yesterdays”
and all the “tomorrows”
are becoming more and more aware
that it’s possible to gather around the same table,
perhaps even to share:
– lunch?
– coffee?
– existence?
07:33 a.m., May 20th 2042, Day 23.
The morning sun filtered through the dense curtains for the twenty-third time since our intense investigation began. The building continues to reveal more questions than answers. As I sip my morning coffee, I feel ready to reflect on the discussions from the previous evening’s progress meeting. We delved deep into theories surrounding the building’s anomalous behaviour, seeking connections amidst the chaotic data. Geological anomalies, magnetic disturbances, and even rumours of temporal rifts were up for discussion. Structural engineers and architects had uncovered an elaborate network of gears and mechanisms hidden within the building’s walls, suggesting it was engineered for movement. Meanwhile, the geologist speculated on some earthly formations that might have influenced its design, while the physicist contemplated the potential resonance frequencies that could explain its rotational behaviour. The question of who built such a structure and why remains elusive, with theories ranging from ancient rituals to experimental technology. Environmental scientists and biologists, examining the surrounding flora and fauna, found no anomalies except for a curious uptick in the local beetle population.
Carried away, I can’t help but still leave these words into their own linguistic realm. Could the Chrysolina fastuosa perched on my knee that morning, along with what we had found within the archives, also hold a clue? What if we continue failing to understand its hints? How does one learn to listen to non-words, to all the failed attempts of communication I’ve been experiencing?
The story incorporates outcomes from the speculative storytelling workshop held on May 1, 2024, as part of the Architecture of Cure programme in Krvavica, Croatia. Contributors included:
Ana Dana Beroš
Esteban Salcedo
Henrik Drufva
Johanna Musch
Laura Filipović
Matij Pervan
Mika Savela
Nikolina Rafaj
Tina Divić