A crooked outline emerges from the darkness, steps into the dimly lit space outside the restaurant's open door, and walks slowly toward it.
He is momentarily taken aback, his tense nerves and readiness for any surprise causing his hand to dart to his holster as if of its own accord and grasp the weapon with remarkable rapidity, as befits a professional soldier.
"Zoran, my son!" A hunchbacked old woman speaks in a trembling voice. He recognizes her immediately.
"Is that any way to greet your mother? Put the gun down!"
Impossible! He thinks this can't be. She passed away last year, in a dilapidated house on the outskirts of the village where she raised him alone. Waves of shame and grief pierce his consciousness; he left her alone three years ago and ran off to the army to escape poverty
