The day was like every other shopping day in Sarajevo. People hiding all week from the war dared to dash to the central market, to see who'd survived the past seven days.
By the perverse rules that now govern Sarajevo, that Saturday should have been "acceptably safe" - the day before, nine people had been killed in a mortar attack.
But the market-goers forgot one caveat: Just when it seems the war in Bosnia cannot get any worse, it does.
In one second, the morning sun was replaced by the destruction of a single, 120mm mortar bomb. Two seconds later, 68 were dead. At least 200 more were wounded.
The newest slaughter raised the old questions: Can the war get any worse? What will it finally take to get the rest of the world - including the USA - to do something about it?
The answer to the first question: yes.
To the second: unknown.
In the 22-month war that already has killed more than 200,000, almost all civilians, Saturday's attack was the worst single atrocity in a war overflowing with horror.
Sadako Ogata, the U.N. high commissioner for refugees, called it "new depths in calculated barbarism."
Morgue worker Alija Hodzic was more direct: "It is a little difficult to identify the victims and the number of killed, because a lot of them are in pieces."
The Bosnian Serbs denied responsibility for Saturday's attack, as they did for Friday's attack, as they have for all wrongdoings in the war. And there have been many wrongdoings.
There have been at least eight similar mortar and shelling massacres in Sarajevo. There has been organized raping and concentration camps. There is ethnic cleansing that may be more widespread than ever throughout Bosnia.
The world's response? Talk tough, pass resolutions, declare no-fly zones. But in reality it has done little more than waggle fingers and ask the three sides to make peace.
"It's almost obscene. . . . They (NATO airplanes) fly over and do nothing," said Bosnian Vice President Ejup Ganic. "They are monitoring genocide."
NATO voted in August to provide air strikes to break the "strangulation" of Sarajevo and repeated the threat in January. But with the convoluted process required to launch strikes, few believe they will ever occur.
Some nations - notably Britain, Canada and Spain, which have ground troops among the 28,000 U.N. force in Bosnia - have been reluctant to call in planes for fear of reprisals.
But other countries, including France and Belgium, are ready to take stronger steps.
"I know we are taking risks because the Serbs can try to take revenge on the U.N. on the ground," Belgian Foreign Minister Willy Claes said. "But I see no other solution. It is our ethical duty to . . . show the Serbs they are going too far."
New U.S. Defense Secretary William Perry acknowledged the renewed clamor for air action, but cautioned: "If air strikes are Act One of a new melodrama, what is Act Two? What is Act Three? What is the conclusion?"
Some options suggested by political and military officials:
-- Declare all of Bosnia a "no-fire zone," meaning anytime any artillery weapon is fired, it is taken out by NATO aircraft.
Status of option: The U.N. refuses to discuss it.
-- Lift the arms embargo, which began in May 1992 and bans the sale of weapons in the former Yugoslavia. The embargo has not hurt Bosnian Serbs, who are backed by arms from the Yugoslavian army and Russian nationalists, or Bosnian Croatians, who purchase weapons from eastern European nations. Only the Muslims are affected.
Status of option: President Clinton supports ending the ban; the United Nations and humanitarian groups insist it remain.
-- Tighten the economic embargo. The Yugoslavian economy is crippled by the embargo, which began in June 1992, but the war continues. Tighter sanctions would have little impact.
Status of option: not on the table.
-- Increase diplomacy. Talks at various levels continue, with the next round set for Thursday. Plans to carve up Bosnia reappear in different forms, only for one side to withdraw from talks, break its promise or have its legislature reject the plan.
Status of option: ongoing.
-- Show resolve. In the few times local U.N. commanders have been tough, they have achieved limited results.
Last Wednesday, Lt. Gen. Sir Michael Rose, new commander of U.N. forces in Bosnia, threatened to send in armored vehicles if Serbs blocked U.N. vehicles; the Serbs backed down.
And in the case of Macedonia, despite threats from the Serbs, the United Nations sent a small force there - including U.S. soldiers - to stop the war from spreading. It worked.
Status of option: Favorite of ground troops, but it may be too late. It is shunned by the United States, which sees shades of Vietnam, and Europeans, who fear another World War II.
There seems little promise of improvement.
Now, troops from Croatia are in Bosnia to thwart Muslim military gains. At the same time, Serbs are forcing Bosnian male refugees into the army in preparation for new offenses.
In the West, Britain, France, Canada and Spain have signaled they may pull their troops from Bosnia in the spring.
But in Sarajevo, such debates seem far away from the victims, from survivors and police who wept and vomited amid the shredded bodies, trying to sort the living from the dead among the market stalls.
A severed head and arms and legs ripped from torsos by the explosion lay among the debris. People moaning with shock milled aimlessly among rescue workers.
Emergency room doctors, their white coats splattered with blood, yelled instructions as they rushed for gauze, medicines and bandages just delivered by foreign aid groups.
On Sunday, blood still mixed with rain water in pockmarks left by the mortar shell. Relatives of the dead left bouquets of red, orange, yellow and pink flowers. But this day, Sarajevo's streets were deserted.
