My father used to dream of bombings long after the war was over, wake up during the night and take me out of my bed and carry me out to the basement: sleepwalking. I remember him doing it, I did it myself last night, to my daughter, a few times. I feel as if a sickness is getting out of my body, a long historical fever, a buried anxiety which I inherited being born a Serb of a Serbian father from Herzegovina: other buried fears are that of hunger, and of unwanted children. But the blessings are sharp survival techniques and a lot of sharp and good-humored language: never give up, the moment you become stubborn, not malleable or soft, or vital, you are done for. We had a flood in the building, maybe because of bombings maybe somebody was absent-minded, maybe it is all my fault. I feel guilty anyway, and responsible, more than ever, but impotent. I feel sick somehow: emotionally and physically, I feel like sleeping and sleeping forever, until the peace comes back. Today Primakov is in Belgrade, the Russian foreign minister. I dare not share any hope with my need for hope. I stand immobile at a certain reality point trying to establish it every day anew, to fix it, nail it and act upon it.

We heard that downtown Belgrade was supposed to be bombed last night: it wasn't, so again we have to wait. My neighbors, refugees from Knin, said: I wish it was us tonight, so we can sleep tomorrow. The wife said: if something happens to my sons, I will kill him, it was him, my man who never wanted to go abroad, he wants to be a Serb among Serbs. And here we are, for the second time bombed to death. I said, it is not the same, she said: for me it is. I realized, for her it was, her script of history contained no other pattern than extermination. It is not paranoia, it is not lack of information. It is her life, who can deny her life in the name of Truth.

Last night we were expecting bombs in Belgrade downtown, CNN said so. Instead, three American soldiers were captured by the Yugoslav army, again, CNN says so.

It is a dirty dirty war, I say, frightened people in basements, bruised soldiers on TV without names, Albanian refugees crying on TV, all the time saying all those things people should never have to say, especially not in TV. Human dignity is here at stake, in all of us, actors and onlookers. My friend, a Yugoslav who lives New York, half Albanian, half Serbian, phones me: she says, I am living your European time here, I wish I was there with you.

But we here are living the American time, awake during the nights, dozing during the day: I guess we are living both times all the time. Tonight if the sirens go on, we may or may not go to the shelter: it has become as a Russian roulette choice, a matter of luck. Phase three says, targets in Belgrade downtown, who knows when, so we people in Belgrade can feel the same way as the refugees in Kosovo. But people in Belgrade know nothing about the refugees, only we few who already feel bad and guilty about refugees and Albanians and the war and the world as it is.

Today the sirens gave us more time: I washed my hair, I felt like an Albanian refugee in a safe haven, so NATO's message has reached me. Another thing: every evening, at dusk , my hands start to tremble without control. It goes on for a few hours. I heard that some other women have the same symptoms of fear of air raids after dusk. Men behave differently, they raise their voices and have more opinions than usual on matters of life and death. We are afraid of their death more than of our death, which we do not think of. Only in certain moments, images of violence against my children strike me hard: I nearly faint of pain. I think I prefer suicide to this. Yes, I am ready for suicide now, in case... in certain cases... But I guess suicide is a luxury in certain cases, one needs to plan that luxury. I do.

They ask me for an analytical comment for the Guardian: I cannot do that in this moment, who can, probably nobody. I think I cannot do it anyway because I don't believe in my ability to think ahead; if I had had it deep down inside me as I have some other abilities, like to sing or to dance, I wouldn't have been here now. My parents are alone in their flat, they hardly hear the alarm, they watch official TV and every now and then phone me, saying: don't worry it will be OK.

And I feel better, the voice of my father calms me, as when I was a kid, he gives me security, I don't give that kind of security to my children. On the contrary, it is a choice not to: this world is not a safe place. I heard that the French, German, American German cultural centers, in the center of Belgrade are completely demolished, I don't want to see the debris, nobody is collecting it, it is a new war sculpture, a public corpse, a warning, a reality we are invited to live with every moment.

Some of the graffiti's and badges: The bridge has fallen, long live the bridge, Adolph Goebbels Clinton, Clinton, Serbia is not your Monica, NATO troops kiss my ass, I want to go to school, Only your brain is invisible, Who sings has no bad thoughts, Clinton learn how to sing, NATO in mud, New American Terrorist Organization, We are simply the best.

Some Yugoslav pilots are honored publicly on TV by our President; tomorrow we see in the papers on the obituary page that they are dead. We have to speak up, to speak out. If we stay silent, if we get frightened -- and it is normal to be frightened and silent -- we have no future, we will lose our future as well as our country or voice. So become writers, become singers everybody, people from the streets, underground, in the refugee convoys, in the queues...in armies, in all those ridiculous places where you feel safe when the alarm goes on... When the little girl jumps in the flat above me, my stomach turns up and down: how ridiculous, as if the bombs were so tender as to tickle my stomach from inside. Glass explodes, furniture overturns, people think of volcanoes, earthquakes and other natural catastrophes, incredulous that men can do to each other such mean things.

The son of my friend phoned last night from the battlefield: he could hardly speak, he said he was somewhere not saying where and that he was OK but that some of his friends were not so. The age limit for the volunteers who want to join the war has been raised to 75 for men. What about women, no age limit, often they are even louder in their patriotism.

Arkan the indicted war criminal is promising on CNN lawful and merciful procedure for the three American soldiers: this is freedom of the press. Children are getting sick in the shelters, grown ups are emotionally distressed, our day/night schedule has tightened: we plan by the minute our stay out of home and as the night falls, we plan where and how to spend the night, sharing information we had during the day.

Radio B92 is definitely closed, lawfully, a court decision has been made, new people have come, demanding the old ones to collaborate, it happened in the last few years to other independent papers. And still new papers spring up. My hope speaks, you cannot stop creativity. It is pretty much the same everywhere in the world: even where you have absolute freedom, you cannot guarantee creativity. I watch the sea of refugees orchestrated from both sides on the borders with Yugoslavia, Macedonian, Albania. It reminds me very much of the scene I saw in '95, when Serbs from Krajina poured into Serbia for days and days, without resistance, thoughts, or ideas of what and why has happened. I had the feeling it was orchestrated, everything except for the pain and actors themselves, they were natural.

What a virtual, playful, cruel war. There can be wars lived from inside or from outside: as a matter of proper fantasy, or epic history. Or you can do it both all the time. Personally, my war is a horrid war, made of terrible images of the killings of my dearest and torture and rape ... Those images haunt me when the alarm goes off, it is them that made my hair go white, in one night, last night. The first time I got white hair was ten years ago, at the border with Slovenia, when a drunken customs officer harassed us because we were Serbs from the still existing federation called Yugoslavia. I knew that was only the beginning, as I know that this is the end, I hope not only for me but for all of us. I feel solidarity with all people in war in every century or country. We receive emails from all over the world from such people, people in war or who have been in war. But then, who hasn't, it is only now our turn. A bad, bad world.

On BBC, CNN, SKY TV commentators already speak of the war as a chess game between a very talented human, FRY, and a big humanized but imperfect machine, NATO, praising the skill of human all the time as well as finding flaws in the high technology, thanks to the human enemy. And then the refugees, and then our heavy nights, but nobody really tries to put that picture together. I am supposed to go to Budapest with my daughter: I am wondering is it safe, the roads, and then in Budapest, whom can I turn to, will I be just a Serb or somebody with a face and a story. Years ago, in '92, as a well-off refugee, I spilled many tears because of the offences I had to put up with. It was more than I could bear, I just ran back home, whatever it would be like. Probably I was spoiled but then, frozen bank accounts, a severe if not impossible visa regime, not even the cheapest jobs available clearly pointed out that we were even less wanted than refugees from other countries, if wanted at all. All the lack of love I suffered in the past came back to me as a wave of unbearable pain, I wished I wasn't born. Now, that kind of exile I cannot stand anymore, that life is too degrading for my child. I prefer hunger and danger, it keeps you vital, it doesn't destroy the human side to war.