My name is Tetyana. I am from Kyiv, Ukraine. Two weeks ago, I escaped from the war and relocated to Dnipro, in central Ukraine, because it’s safer here. I am writing these texts in a corridor of my brother’s apartment. This is where my family and I are hiding from the Russian air-raids and bomb-shelling. Our corridor is filled with people: there are four adults, a teenage boy, and a toddler. Oh, and there is a Scottish Straight cat named Willy. Our nights are sleepless, our faces are pale and tired. Only Willy doesn’t care, he is doing just great. I am writing these stories to remember the darkest time in Ukrainian history. More than anything, I want to remember. I don’t know if my thoughts will be interesting to anyone outside of Ukraine, but I am sharing them with you anyway.
I. Tiny Voices
When I think about this war, I see faces.
I see the pretty face of my best friend’s teenage sister. She has type 1 diabetes, which means she must be very careful with her regimen and medication. She and her family are all blocked in besieged Mariupol, where they are left without food, water, and medicine. There’s no electricity, gas, heat, running water, mobile phone, or internet connection throughout the city. But there are plenty of Russian missile attacks, no lack of those. My best friend is more or less safe in central Ukraine, but he is heartbroken.
Every day I text him: “Any updates?” And every day his answer is short and devastating: “No.”
I also have family members in Mariupol. I know very well how dreadful this silence could be.
When I think about this war, I hear sounds.
The sounds are not necessarily loud explosions or sinister sirens; they are much worse.
I hear splashes of water in a cold and stormy Kyiv “sea.” Two boats filled with six civilians each are trying to escape from Russian troops. Women, children, and dogs. I can only imagine the level of fear and despair of these individuals who were forced to decide to sail in this stormy weather. Two people I happen to know (not personally but through friends of friends) were in the second boat—a woman and her four-year-old grandson. Their boat capsized and the woman was found dead. The child and a few others are still missing. I keep hearing the splashes of the frigid, dark water and the cry of the four-year-old boy. These sounds are just here in my ears, and I can’t turn them off.
When I think about this war, I am always thirsty.
I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because I have been in a water-saving mode since the start of the war, first in a bomb shelter, then on an evacuation train. Or perhaps this war reminds me of the wind in a desert—dry, ruthless, and savage. But mostly because I keep thinking of six-year-old Tanya, the little girl who had the same name as me. She died alone from dehydration in the ruins of her home in Mariupol. Her mother was killed by a Russian airstrike, and the girl was trapped under the rubble of their destroyed house. Now, whenever I drink water, I am haunted by the image of this little girl whose life was cut off so early by a bunch of medieval barbarians with their wild geopolitical fantasies.
Now, I am sharing these stories not because I urge you to take any immediate actions. I want you to hear not only the magnificent voices of our heroes and heroines, but also those tiny voices coming from the dark ruins of our cities, from our grey and cold shelters, and from the bottom of our lakes.
If you care, you are one of us.
At the end of the day, we are all Ukraine.
II. Insomnia Plague
Among all possible and impossible war crimes committed by the Kremlin and the Russian Army in Ukraine, there is another atrocity.
They steal our dreams.
Now, by “dreams” I mean both our cherished aspirations for the future and the visions occurring in one’s mind during sleep. In Ukraine, we have none of those. In fact, we haven’t been sleeping since February 24, 2022.
Every night there are air-raids and howling sirens, and usually they last till morning. These sleepless nights are exhausting physically and mentally, and they leave you emotionally drained. Very often I hear phantom sirens, imaginary sounds, as if a ghost monster lives somewhere in the outskirts of my mind and howls every time I try to fall asleep.
This reminds me of the famous fictional disease described by Gabriel García Márquez in One Hundred Years of Solitude.
He named it insomnia plague, a magical pandemic whose symptoms included the absence of sleep and, later, loss of memory. First, the citizens of fictional Macondo had nostalgia for their dreams, so they spent nights playing silly games and telling each other stories. But then they started forgetting basic notions and decided to label things with words on little pieces of paper.
Of course, it’s a metaphor, just like everything else in this masterpiece of a book. People without dreams have no future and because of that they lose their memory, their past. They are trapped in a haunting predetermined existence where history is doomed to repeat itself.
That’s exactly what the Russian government has been doing to its people. No choices, no hopes, no dreams.
That’s what they want to do to us Ukrainians. They want to steal our future; they want to erase our past and rewrite our history, labeling things the way they want. But they already failed, and it makes them so furious.
Every sleepless night I stare at the ceiling of our corridor, thinking about simple and wonderful things I will do after we win.
I am thinking about the people I will hug, the Kyiv streets I will walk, and the books I will read (or maybe even write).
I am thinking about the future; in my fantasies, it’s colored in yellow and blue.
III. Lanterns in the Darkness
The strangest paradox I observe during the war: it is a collective evil and a crime against humanity, and at the same time it is a very personal experience of sorrow and pain.
You will never understand what it’s like unless you live in it. It’s like floating in outer space—we can all imagine how it feels, but only astronauts and aliens know for sure.
But unlike in the cosmos, there is nothing beautiful in war.
It’s inhuman. It’s savage. It’s unnatural.
It doesn’t inspire.
If you hear a beautiful poem or a song written during wartime, it’s not because of the war, it’s despite it. Most likely, the artists who created those things have a lot of inner peace and light inside their hearts, and they try to heal the wounded world with their words and music. The credit goes to the artist, not to the war.
These days I see a lot of people who remind me of lanterns in the darkness.
Just like lanterns, their light is soft and golden as honey.
Just like lanterns, these people are warm and the darkness around them is fading away. They are not scared because their lantern illuminates only a few steps ahead of them; that’s enough to proceed further.
I see this light in Ukrainian doctors, nurses, and paramedics.
I see it in Ukrainian teachers who are leading online classes no matter what: If you hear sirens, go to your shelter. Once it’s over, return and recite the poem.
I see it in Ukrainian and international volunteers who can help an elderly grandma with a new set of false teeth or a puppy with finding a veterinary clinic in a new town.
This light shines brightly abroad, in our supporters who help the Ukrainian army and refugees, who collect donations and humanitarian aid. There is an American woman whom I never met, but she cares about me and my friends. She donated money to restore my friends’ family house, and she texts me often to check on my best friend’s sister: “How is the teenage girl in besieged Mariupol? How are you?” I never met her, but I want to hug her.
I see these human “lanterns” everywhere.
In fact, there is so much glow around me that I can see my path very clearly.
I am taking one step at a time, knowing we will cross this dark forest filled with monsters.
The light will prevail.
(March 14–19, 2022, Dnipro, Ukraine)
Tetyana Strelchenko is a writer from Ukraine. She has a degree in English, Spanish, and World Literature, and her short stories, poems, and essays have appeared in publications in Ukraine, Austria, Germany, and Israel.
