You’ve never seen anything like the sight of Andriy walking to the hinterland, outlined in mauve, as clouds of earth and seed burst to his right and his left and glitter. Earth, dismembered, snows. Earth settles in the craters. Earth settles on the prostrate bodies that walked through parks, that drank to health, that worked and hailed the sunflowered land, the blue sky.
You’ve never seen anything like it — Andriy walking to the hinterland while you fiddle with your morning coffee. You shake. You shake, your hands shake, the creamer gluts half into the cup half onto the counter half onto the hem of your sweater. School calls, office calls, baby girl calls, everybody calls you no rush no worries see you when we see you. You dab the cream in your sweater with a dish rag and look out the window and see Andriy, outlined in mauve, walking through the earth busted open by sick lead balls, walking through the craters glittering with earth. A sunflower grows above the lilies in the garden by the shed.
You’ve never seen anything like it, but someone who watched you on the swings has. Someone who dabs your scab with vodka has. Someone from the poorhouse has. Someone from the scrapbook has. Someone from the mission has.
“Just wait,” Auntie with her blind, opaque eyes used to murmur. “When you get older, the question you’ll wish you could answer has to do with people. Are they good or bad? If you can’t answer, stop trying. I keep trying to answer it. That’s why I’m losing my hearing.”
You walk outside and look East and you’ve never seen anything like it: the chimneys venting blood, the clouds of earth and seed, Andriy walking to the hinterland. Do you hear sirens?
02/24/2022: Russia invades Ukraine.
