Now I’m out of Ukraine again. 

Now it feels like every place is out of Ukraine, out of home. 

Now I’m living near the pub and a big streetlamp. 

I’ve never had such a close stream of light by my window before, 

I’ve never heard such a cracking noise by my window before. 

Every night, I’m listening to the fearsome, uncontrollable laughter. 

I’ve never heard such a sharp laugh in Ukraine. 

Every night, I’m covering myself from face to foot, hiding from the light and noise. Usually, it takes me several hours to fall asleep, while I’m overseeing the people and light passing before my window. 

Yesterday, I went to bed before midnight—earlier than usual. 

Yesterday, I covered myself with a blanket from top to toe, as always. 

Yesterday, one boy told the story, in Ukrainian, of how he went to an attraction with his girlfriend, stood in the long line for more than an hour, and then, before entering, his girl thought for a while and calmly said: 

I won’t go. 

I’m wondering and excited that people are thinking about attractions now. I saw a white-haired boy telling this story. 

I saw him exiting the pub one summer night in a black leather coat with red pieces. I saw him hanging out and laughing with his friends, talking about attractions and girls, while they were seated at the round wooden table in front of the pub. 

Now he acquired their grotesque laughter, and I think I will never see his face in the light of the day, and he will be safe. 

The people outside were resting after a long, peaceful working day. They were releasing all the emotions they had collected. 

It was scary to be so close to these emotions, to accept them as their witness. All the people in front of my window transformed and came into my dreams that night. It seemed like they were riding around on a carousel before my eyes, and were laughing, looking, and pointing straight at me. Everything was gray and smoky. We were drifting in some parallel, gloomy universe. 

I saw the pieces of my broken heart in their approaching and passing eyes. Do I belong to them? 

I woke up but didn’t open my eyes. I saw dim moving light before my closed eyelids. I started recalling my past. 

When I was small, I was scared to go to my grandparents’ house. I was afraid of one room in particular. In that room, there was a couch in the corner with several blankets piled on it. At the night, when I was laying on my back, I would watch the reflections of the skylight and passing cars moving on the top of the wall. Then I would lower my gaze and watch the black shadows of the blankets.

The blankets lay in such a form that during the night they resembled real people to me. I would watch the round-backed black shadow and imagine how it might slowly straighten and turn its face to me. I imagined what this shadow was doing before, what it is doing now, and what it will do in a moment, half-turned to me. Its gibbosity and contour were breathing and gave an indication of thinking, and brought more aliveness to this motionless image. At that time, it seemed like it was about to move and approach me. I would lie, frozen, and wait. 

Now I’m back in real-time. I’m still lying frozen under the blanket. Now I can’t return to that one-time room of my childhood. 

It was the room where my granddad used to live. 

My granddad died before the war. 

A few days ago, my mom had a dream about this room. 

She entered the house. It was some kind of holiday, and she was searching for her dad. She approached the room. 

Inside, she saw Putin with long, curly, red hair. 

He was lying on the couch and noticed her with a sidelong glance. He got up, approached the window, cast an innocent gaze at her, and said, 

I’m hiding here... Now you know my hiding place, everyone will know. 

My mom stood for a while, then ran out to the street to search for my dad. When she found him, she said, 

Hey, I found Putin’s hiding place, now everyone will come here. We should run away. 

Now I'm recalling another dream. 

People from Bucha. 

Once, I saw their bodies lying on the street, faces half-turned to the ground. I saw the slobber that remained around their mouths. Some man whispered in my right ear that this indicated the tortures they witnessed. 

Once, I heard the story of one woman from Bucha. She had a growth in her brain; she had an operation, and the offending part of her brain was cut out. She survived. Then she got pregnant, and then shouldered hard COVID, and then she was sitting in Bucha, listening to the shooting near her window, waiting for her husband to bring her and their dog some food, listening to Russian soldiers tell the locals that they will shoot them in the kneecaps. She managed to leave for Western Ukraine and gave birth to the child. When she got back to Bucha, she was ready to kiss the ground. 

Thinking of the past, and recalling the crossroads before the Bucha, I feel like I’m going back to nearby Irpin again, to the time I left it. From the car window, I saw an invisible layer of defenseless nakedness hanging over the people, though they walked as usual and didn’t seem to notice anything in the air. Now, when the destruction came to these cities, it feels like I didn’t know them at all, like I should have confessed to the inherent black energy I felt was hanging in the air.

Am I ready to kiss this burnt ground? 

I’m still trying to get up. 

All the days became one. 

Is this the same gloomy dawn? 

The voices by my window vanished, for now. 

I can only hear a lone drunk voice. 

If I die tomorrow, will someone say a good word for me? 

I feel like wearing his shoes. 

Who can feel the pleasure of slipping on a coat of badness? 

One can be captured by the illusion of excitement by wearing it for some time. But will everyone ask about his right to live and exist hereafter, and be struck by the feeling of completely vanishing? 

I feel like this man who passed by the corner and said, 

I like being bad. It makes me breathe and walk faster. 

I feel like I’m seeing this man in his black coat, looking into his lackluster eyes and getting scared, because I’m falling into a vast depth, getting smaller and smaller, and I don’t feel my body in this free fall. 

Then he takes off his coat of badness and watches how it becomes small and miserable in his hands, realizing how it hurt him. His tears dropping on his wounds hurt him further. And for the moment he believed that he will never cover anyone with this badness again, but with his body. 

Does anyone own his body these days? 

Once, I heard the story of the improperly buried body of one soldier. He was dead at the dawn after the shelling on his position, and the guy who was with him just left his body near the river in the forest, powdered it with the ground, and faded away. During the day, it was raining, the water level rose, and the body came to rise to the surface. When the survivor was passing through this place in the night, in the gleam he saw the body emerge in another place, and it scared him to death. 

Can the dead, painful bodies, and friends disappear completely? 

But maybe this is my illusion. 

Fitting all life inside the window is indeed a big illusion. 

I’m still in my bed, fully covered with the blanket. 

In the warmth of the early morning, I had a feeling that I can cover someone, and can be covered, and it wouldn’t be hard. The carousel of the alien, shadowy life disappeared. The warmth approaches and covers me. And I’m taking off my blanket.