It’s just difficult to believe in this better future until we see better people who will take us there. We will all agree that a man is better if his ears don’t stick out, if his nose doesn’t take up half his face, if his forehead is smaller than his eyebrows, and his lips aren’t a la Tudjman.

Nenad Velickovic

The Carsija squares are empty of ropemakers, blacksmyths, leather craftsmen, and other tradesmen whose work has become opsolete, which may or may not be true, don’t be surprised if one day in a little alley there is suddenly a company called Photoshopper.

 

This trade, if democracy supports it and elections keep taking place every two years, has a bright future. It’s a seasonal job, but there are few trades that aren’t. In the same way that Adriatic tourist workers make their yearly earnings during a few months, a photoshopper can take care of himself and his family over one election campaign.

 

The time is coming when more people will take photos for business cards, flyers, and posters than actually come out and vote. During these campaigns, we’ve established quite a silly tradition to present candidates via print materials, with party logos and ridiculous slogans, where candidates utilise their faces to recommend themselves to the public. And right here, with these faces, we see the interdisciplinary nature of the photoshopper trade. In one case he is a dentist, permanently removing plaque and pigment from teeth, a beautician, removing blackheads and acne from noses and chins. Of course, as a beautician he’s a licenced cosmetic surgeon, so he has no issue removing scars and moles. He also painlessly waxes the upper lip area to persons listed second, fifth, or eighth on the candidate list.

 

Unlike medical workers and Torabi[1], the photoshopper makes the impossible possible. If a candidate is cross eyed, meaning he has the ability to look left and right at the same time and never looks at you, which is a handicap for a candidate who wants to convince you he is truthful – our photoshopper can quickly turn that gaze towards a brighter future (And do something else, although it’s a business secret I’ll never tell!)

It’s just difficult to believe in this better future until we see better people who will take us there. We will all agree that a man is better if his ears don’t stick out, if his nose doesn’t take up half his face, if his forehead is smaller than his eyebrows, and his lips aren’t a la Tudjman. Once upon a time balding candidates struggled with toupes, treated their scalps with all sorts of shampoos, used tonnes of hairspray to achieve the convertible-hair, but all of that is ancient history now. In the photoshopper’s shop, you can have brand new hair in a few minutes – instead of kilograms of foundation battling the army of sweat produced by flashes and spotlights.

 

So a candidate walks in, and to say he’s got a balloon head is an understatement. More like a globe. A fly gets tired going around it. His hairdresser charges him double for a cut. You can see there’s a lot of space for the brain. A few photoshop moves, and the elephant man is now the campaign carrier. Another one comes in, high blood pressure, redder than any leftist party. And on the poster – as pink as a baby. You’d squeeze him if there was anything to squeeze. And this goes on for days, weeks, months. Virutal implants, fixing cleavages, lifting necks, ironing out the under eye bags, removing any signs of hangover. Tens of faces, hundreds, thousands of people giving their heads for what their appetite is really after: a nipple on the budget udder.
And our photoshopper is rubbing his hands in delight. If his present is this lucrative, who knows what the future holds. Just wait until socialites realise he doesn’t care whether he works with faces or asses…

 

Bosnian-herzegovinian writer and columnist, founder and editor of several magazines, author of several novels, collections of stories and prose, satirical pieces. Professor at the Faculty of Serb Literature at the University of Philosophy in Sarajevo. Member of the BiH P.E.N Center.

 

 

[1] A Moroccan fraudulent ‘healer’ who visited BiH some years ago