Bosnia is under my skin. It's the place you cannot leave behind.

Host: The rain had been falling all evening, soft but relentless — a quiet percussion that blurred the edges of the old Sarajevo café. The windows fogged, and the sound of conversation was low, muffled, as if everyone there was speaking out of respect for the ghosts that still walked the streets outside.

The walls were lined with photographs — some black and white, some faded by time. Images of bridges rebuilt, faces lined with history, and the Neretva River, flowing like a scar across the landscape of memory.

Jack sat near the window, his hands around a chipped cup of Turkish coffee. His eyes were distant — watching the rain trail down the glass, though he was seeing something far older. Jeeny sat across from him, her notebook open but untouched, the pen resting idly between her fingers.

For a moment, neither spoke. The silence was reverent, heavy with things unspoken.

Then, quietly, Jeeny said:

Jeeny: “Paddy Ashdown once said — ‘Bosnia is under my skin. It’s the place you cannot leave behind. I was obsessed by the nightmare of it all; there was this sense of guilt, and an anger that has become something much deeper over these last years.’”

Jack: (nodding slowly) “Yeah… you can feel it in his words. Bosnia wasn’t just a mission for him. It became a wound he chose to keep open.”

Jeeny: “Because forgetting would’ve been a betrayal.”

Host: The wind pressed against the glass, making the candle on their table flicker. Outside, a group of children ran past, their laughter echoing through the wet streets — life reborn on soil that had once known too much silence.

Jack: “You know, people think anger fades with time. But with men like Ashdown — it doesn’t fade, it evolves. It stops being rage, and turns into something deeper. Responsibility.”

Jeeny: “The kind of anger that doesn’t destroy — it rebuilds. It fuels compassion.”

Jack: “Yeah. The kind of anger that still prays.”

Host: The waiter brought another round of coffee, the small cups trembling slightly on their saucers. The smell filled the space — earthy, grounding, human.

Jeeny: “He carried Bosnia in his bones, you can tell. Guilt and duty mixed together. It’s the survivor’s curse — even when you’re not the one who suffered directly, you suffer from witnessing it.”

Jack: “That’s empathy at its rawest. He wasn’t Bosnian, but he became Bosnian in spirit. He absorbed their pain until it became his own.”

Jeeny: “Because once you’ve seen what human cruelty looks like up close, neutrality stops being an option.”

Jack: “Exactly. He couldn’t unsee the graves, the shell holes, the faces in the camps. That kind of truth brands you.”

Host: The lights flickered as thunder rolled faintly in the distance — not loud, but lingering, like memory itself. Jeeny stared into her coffee, the swirling foam resembling maps — borders drawn, erased, redrawn again.

Jeeny: “It’s strange, isn’t it? How guilt can outlast even the war. He wasn’t guilty of the violence — but of survival, of being powerless to stop it all.”

Jack: “That’s what happens to anyone who loves a place that’s suffered. The guilt becomes a language. Every act of kindness afterward is an apology.”

Jeeny: “And every silence — a mourning.”

Host: Jack looked up at the wall behind her, where an old photograph hung — a bridge, half-destroyed, its stones mirrored in the water below like a wound trying to remember its shape.

Jack: “That’s the thing about Bosnia. It’s not a place you visit; it’s a place that claims you. Once you’ve seen it — the beauty and the horror in the same frame — it never leaves.”

Jeeny: “Because it forces you to confront the paradox of being human — how we can create cathedrals and concentration camps with the same hands.”

Jack: “Ashdown understood that. He wasn’t haunted by war alone — he was haunted by the failure of peace.”

Host: The rain grew softer, more deliberate now, as if the storm was catching its breath. The café door opened for a moment, letting in a cold draft and the scent of wet stone.

Jeeny: “You think that’s why he said his anger became something deeper?”

Jack: “Yeah. Because it turned into grief. And then into duty. Anger screams; grief listens.”

Jeeny: “And duty builds.”

Jack: “Exactly.”

Host: The candle between them wavered, its flame small but stubborn. Jeeny reached out, steadying it with her hand cupped close — the gesture instinctive, gentle.

Jeeny: “You know, there’s something almost sacred in how he talks about Bosnia. Like it’s not geography, but confession.”

Jack: “Because it was. The war wasn’t just about politics — it was about the failure of the human spirit. And people like Ashdown carried that failure as penance.”

Jeeny: “You think he ever forgave himself?”

Jack: (after a long pause) “Maybe not. Maybe forgiveness isn’t the goal. Maybe remembrance is.”

Host: The clock on the café wall ticked softly, marking time not in seconds, but in breaths. Outside, the city’s lights shimmered in the rain — reflections trembling on the wet cobblestones, as if the world itself was weeping quietly.

Jeeny: “You know what I think?”

Jack: “What?”

Jeeny: “That some places are more than places. They’re moral tests. Bosnia was one of them. It asked the world: Who will stand when innocence falls? And too many people looked away.”

Jack: (softly) “And he never did.”

Jeeny: “No. He watched — and he carried. Maybe that’s why it got under his skin. Because carrying pain is the closest thing we have to redemption.”

Host: Jack nodded slowly, his gaze falling again to the window. The reflection of the candle danced across his face — a man caught between memory and mercy.

Jack: “Maybe the real peacekeepers aren’t the ones who stop the fighting. They’re the ones who refuse to stop feeling.”

Jeeny: “And in that way, he never left Bosnia. None of the good ones ever do.”

Host: The rain stopped, but its sound lingered in the imagination. The air was thick with stillness — that fragile, healing silence that comes after confession.

They both sat there, not speaking, their silence heavy but whole. Outside, the world kept breathing.

And as the candle burned low, Paddy Ashdown’s words settled like ash and light at once — a truth carved from history and heartbreak:

That some wounds are not meant to close,
because they are the reminders that conscience is still alive.

That love, when faced with tragedy, becomes duty.
And that the deepest kind of peace
is not the absence of war —
but the refusal to ever look away again.

Because some places —
like Bosnia —
don’t just stay under your skin.
They become
your soul’s unfinished prayer.