The War. Beginning.
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It is war, day 12… or 13, not sure, I’m not keeping up. That’s bad because I might fail to finish this, but also good in a way, because I can now reflect on how it all began.
I didn’t believe the news when “the war is inevitable” narrative started to surface. I mean, really? WAR? More like the russians will saber-rattle, push that gas pipe forward, the EU will be “deeply concerned” for a while and that’ll be it. The spring was at hand, I’ve got new costume ideas and some health issues that might just be fixed by my new therapist (sense of humour? check; western protocols? check; and she didn’t insist on putting me on hospice care right away). So… war, srsly? I decided to put the war on hold, they wouldn’t bombard Kharkiv, right? That’s just bananas.
Dennis (the husband) insisted that we leave immediately, but we decided to proceed with my medical stuff and leave afterwards. At some point he broke and asked me and DD to pack our stuff “just in case”. We opposed the idea vigorously, tried to turn it into a joke, pretended to be deaf or stupid until one evening he stormed upon us and screamed with his eyes and face turning red. So we packed our stuff just to defuse the situation. The next day I told this as a funny story as if he went insane, but after the second thought I (jokingly) briefed everyone on “the war plan”. I even stocked up on cat food.
The night before I asked my neighbour to give me a haircut (he’s The God of Haircutting), he came over around 10 pm and worked for three hours. The whole process was filled with jokes like “Hurry up, any colour will do. We’ll just say it’s camouflage” or “What if there’s war and I don’t have a haircut? What am I supposed to do then?”
We woke up at 5 am with the first blasts. At first I thought it was some idiot with firecrackers. Then I started feeling the blasts with my gut, heart racing and that gut ready to throw up. I kicked Dennis, we got up, opened the blinds and then it went full “Fight Club” finale with the protagonist and Marla standing in front of the French window (just like ours, I hope they’re still intact) and watching the skyscrapers fall. In our case the ring road and Belgorod highway were burning.
It has begun.
