Border: A Journey to the Edge of Europe

by Kapka Kassabova

It may be that all borderlands hum with the frequencies of the unconscious; after all, borders are where the fabric is thin.

Once near a border, it is impossible not to be involved, not to want to exorcise or transgress something. Just by being there, the border is an invitation. Come on, it whispers, step across this line. If you dare. To step across the line, in sunshine or under cover of night, is fear and hope rolled into one. And somewhere waits a ferryman whose face can’t be seen. People die crossing borders, and sometimes just being near them. The lucky ones are reborn on the other side.

History is written by the victors, they say, but it seems to me that history is written above all by those who weren’t there, which may be the same thing.