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... "HIC CINERES UBIQUE NOMEN" ... The citation seemed appropriate to me, and I decided to paint it in large letters on the remains of the destroyed Liberty Bridge. First: the NATO pilots would be able to see it, and understand it, for at their military academies they must have learned about the military leader and that part of French history. Second: it was suitable to the bridge which bore that name. For, if its remains-ashes were there in the Danube, the name “liberty” is everywhere. Because of that idea, I spent the rest of the night in euphoria. The next day, with eighty kilograms of paint I wrote in letters three and a half meters high "HIC CINERES UBIQUE NOMEN". Beside it I painted Napoleon’s three-pointed hat with the letter “N” on it, and beneath it my e-mail address. On the other side, in the lanes headed the opposite direction, just to be safe I painted the English translation of the text and beneath it “The Bridge of Liberty”. I gave up on, in time, translating it into Serbian. Probably from the effort, the lack of sleep and the excitement, I got a slight case of pneumonia. I’m not sorry I did. After a couple of days I got a reply from the e-mail address natodoc@hq.nato, from someone whose name or surname was Dallo, or something like that, with the message “ECCE HOMO” (“Behold the man”). Although I was happy he’d read the message, I wasn’t very happy with the reply. I had written the message for myself, but not about myself. Perhaps his reply would have been nicer if he’d written "Ecce hommullus" (“Behold the little man”).
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