translated from the Russian by Iryna Serebriakova
edited by Samuel Buggeln
Bios
Iryna Serebriakova is a Ukrainian playwright, writer and translator. Her documentary theatre plays were produced in Timișoara, Kyiv, Almaty, Helsinki, New Delhi, Berlin, Cologne, Stockholm, Uppsala, Barcelona, and Prague. Her collection of short tales for children and adults was published in Sweden in Swedish translation in 2023. Over 20 fiction and non-fiction books were published in her translation from French and English to Ukrainian and Russian.
Masha Denisova is a Ukrainian artist, writer and playwright. Based in Kyiv, she has been staying there throughout the war. In her practice, she is mostly interested in documenting everyday reality, focusing on the impact of the war on the life of civilians. Along with theatre plays, she is involved in writing prose. Her notes, diaries and the interviews taken during the severe blackouts caused by shelling were the primary source of the documentary play Women in the Dark.
Introductory note, Women in the Dark and Men in Daylight
Women in the Dark is a dark comedy for two actresses. Set in Kyiv, it explores the role of electricity in everyday life through the female experience of wartime. The Ukrainian women exchange funny, sad and scary stories from their daily life with severe blackouts caused by shelling. The play is an attempt to reflect not only on electricity, but on the fragility of human civilization. We take for granted such elements of the urban landscape as traffic lights or pharmacies. However, what happens if they are not working anymore—along with elevators, cash machines, the Internet, and mobile phone connection? The play explores life in Kyiv in autumn–winter 2022 through early spring 2023. The situation with electricity supply remains unstable in the capital and in the country. The play has been staged in Oslo in a Norwegian translation, in Uppsala in Swedish, in Barcelona in Spanish, and in New Delhi.
Men in Daylight is an attempt to reflect on the images of masculinity today. The starting point is documentary evidence about Ukrainian men during the ongoing war. Nowadays in Ukraine, women and children are allowed to be scared and depressed, but not men. Men are expected to be brave and ready to sacrifice their life. However, in reality, not every man fits the myth of a hero. Composing this text, I tried to listen to those who are confused and stressed; who don’t want to go to a war where they will most certainly die. What is more, some men are afraid of homophobia in the army even more than of death in battle. All such men are facing immense pressure. They are locked inside the country, not allowed to leave Ukraine due to the wartime restrictions. Some die in an attempt to cross the border and get to Romania and Hungary. The polyphonic structure of the play introduces us to the various struggles of those who either join or do not join the army. —Iryna Serebriakova
Men in Daylight
Characters
Mikhail, 52
Leonid, 58
Pasha, 47
Slavik, 31
Philologist, 29
Matvey, 27
Sasha, 18
Outsider who comes from time to time
Mikhail. I got on the minibus. I only saw unoccupied seats at the back. While I was making my way there, my bag bumped some girl. I sat down, and she turned around and started to stare at me. I probably should have apologized. But a couple of minutes had already passed. I would have had to apologize immediately, and now it would be stupid.
She stared and stared at me. I stared back at her. She had beautiful eyes, but she was looking at me with anger. Then she jumped up, came up to me and started to push her smartphone in my face. She was probably filming me. I tried to turn away, and she almost broke my nose with the phone. Not on purpose, just the minibus was shaking and jumping on the road.
The girl started screaming, “Our guys are dying for people like you! Our guys are in the trenches, and you’re sitting here!”
She returned to her seat and burst into tears. The minibus drove on without stopping. No one looked at us.
Matvey. Nowadays, when someone addresses you, it’s only to say where you fucked up, and what’s wrong with you.
“This table is occupied.”
“You’re talking too loudly on the phone.”
“Look where you’re going! Are you blind or what?”
“Are you some kind of faggot?”
Once strangers could say nice things to each other:
“You look so cool. Do you have an Instagram?”
“Your dog is very cute.”
“We’re glad to have you in our cafe.”
That was before the war. It feels like it was in another life.
Now when someone starts talking to me, I always tense up, because I’m expecting an attack.
Sasha. Right after the war broke out, everyone became very polite.
Usually, we’re all quarrelling over everything, especially taking transit. Close the window. Open the window. Why the air conditioner or heater isn’t working; why the baby’s crying the whole way. Others would bark back that if you don’t like it on the bus, take a taxi.
So, when the war began, this all stopped. I’d even say babies began to cry less. Everyone was scared. Everyone was grateful they were at least going somewhere. Maybe not to Europe. After all, men can’t leave the country. But you still go to work, or to a safer place, or to see someone. At least you’re going somewhere, and that’s already good.
This attitude lasted for about three months. Then everyone got over the first shock, and the fighting resumed.
It got back up to our pre-war level, and went much further. Everyone started to lose it, more and more every day. Now it seems like if you accidentally step on someone’s foot, he’s going to explode and curse you. This is disconcerting. It’s no longer clear what to expect from people.
But I see it as something positive too. If people still have the strength for aggression, not everything is lost.
In principle, if a person yells at you, it’s better than if he smiles politely, sits silently, and then nicely takes out a weapon.
News. Triple murder.
According to preliminary reports, a 53-year-old man went to three houses in his neighborhood and shot three neighbors (67, 63, and 47 years old) with a shotgun, after which he blew himself up with a grenade.
Public service announcement. Turn your rage into a weapon. Join the Offensive Guard Fury Brigade.
Slavik. I tell myself not to load myself up with stress. I’m not a truck, why should I load myself up?
Advertisement at the metro. Boost your male charisma.
News. The military forces of Ukraine are experiencing personnel replacement problems.
In July, only about 50% of the necessary number of soldiers were mobilized to the training centers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
We remind you that in June as well, only 50% of military personnel were mobilized from the number who were supposed to start training at drill centers to replenish the Ukrainian army.
Philologist. Human Resources Centers.
If I’d heard that before, I would’ve thought that it was something to do with a job. Companies that want to hire people.
Not at all. “Human Resources Center” is a new name for a military command post.
News. How do you behave when you receive a conscription notice, and what can’t you say to Human Resources Center staff?
Don’t forget that you’re talking to a military man. You don’t know what he’s gone through. So avoid any questions or statements that might upset him. For example:
“Why aren’t you at the front line?”
“You’re sitting here, but you want to send me there?”
Questions like that aren’t against the law. But you can never be insubordinate. Often, it’s exactly these conversations that lead to conflicts and violence.
Pasha. Heroes do not die. That’s been the motto here for about ten years now.
The Outsider enters.
Outsider.
One, two, three, four, five,
Once I caught a fish alive.
Six, seven, eight, nine, ten,
Then I let it go again.
Everyone freezes. The Outsider walks around them, then leaves.
Matvey. Half of the tweets are patriotic. Every patriotic tweet starts with “We must…”
Facebook is even worse: the opening is the same, and then a post that’s five screens long.
We “must.”
We fucking “must.”
My short manifesto is: fuck off.
News. In the villages of the Zakarpattia region, the locals protested against forced conscription. As reasons for the protests, the organizers named illegal conscription practices, including beatings and kidnapping people. Two active participants in the protests – women who blocked the highway – are risking up to three years in prison.
Leonid. I signed up as a volunteer back in March, right after it all started. I came to say goodbye to my daughter. When I told her, she had a breakdown. She’s generally a calm girl. But that time, she screamed, ran around the apartment, smashed the dishes. The dishes weren’t on purpose: her hands were shaking and everything fell.
She was crying like I was already dead. At the time, I couldn’t understand her reaction.
“Why?” she screamed, “Why did you go there? On your own!”
I said that everything would be fine. That we would win soon. That I would get paid decent money. That I wanted to do something meaningful. She cried even more and screamed that I was a moron.
After six months of service, I understood why she was screaming. I myself started to tell her: do everything you can to keep your husband from getting taken away. Don’t live in the place you’re registered. Move to grandma’s apartment. Don’t open the door to anyone. He shouldn’t leave the apartment at all. For a year if necessary. For two years if necessary. It’s very serious.
News. An unemployed man from Kropyvnytskyi is going to prison for three years for evasion of military service.
According to the case documents, at the end of December 2022, the accused, whom the medical board had found fit for service, refused to report to the military unit. In court, he explained that he feared for his life.
This criminal offense was intentional. The accused understood the consequences of his refusal to perform military service. Moreover, the man said that “it would be better to be in prison than to go to war.”
Slavik. Currency exchange offices used to put the exchange rate on displays or boards.
Then that was forbidden, to not frighten the people with how low our currency might drop. Now all the electronic boards show the rates of all currencies as zero.
I walk the streets and don’t know the exchange rate of the euro.
Oh, what am I talking about? Suppose I knew the exchange rate, could I afford euros now?
Even if I did buy one or two hundred, where would I go with them? Maybe to Europe – since now I have Euros? Ha ha. As if I was allowed to leave the country.
Sasha. Dad’s back home on leave. He tells me, “Come here, I’ll show you a video.”
He never used to watch any videos, never sent anything to me. Even before the war. Even videos of raccoons, funny dogs, stuff like that. The only time he’d pick up the phone in his hand was to make a phone call. In general, dad and video are an odd combination for me.
I come to his room. He shows me a video on the phone.
A man on the pavement face down. In a military uniform. In our military uniform. His head is smashed in. Pieces of skull and brain.
Dad tells me: this is our commander. He wanted to send us to Bakhmut without training or equipment. Machine guns and armor, nothing else. One soldier broke loose and shot him. At least there was someone who didn’t hesitate to do it.
Dad half smiles. I’m scared. Not because of a smashed-in head on the pavement, but because of my dad’s half-smile. I’ve never seen him like this. Dad is delighted that the commander was murdered. Dad regrets that he didn’t do it.
Usually, he reflects on everything for a very long time. But once he decides, nothing can stop him.
I’m scared. I say, “Dad, just don’t kill anyone there.”
News. In the Vinnytsia region, members of the military have shot police officers.
The police officers stopped a car for inspection, in which there were two men in camouflage, who started to shoot. One of the police officers died on the spot; he was only 20 years old.
The Ukrainian Armed Forces confirmed that the suspects in the murder are servicemen in one of their military units.
Leonid. At the very beginning, I served in Kyiv. We were sent to de-mine the forest on the left bank. It’s a forest in the city, the locals always used to go there to jog, walk their dogs, make love.
Many forests around Kyiv, and just inside the city, were immediately mined when the war started. Then, when it became clear that the city would not be surrendered, they slowly started de-mining.
So, we’ve barely entered these woods, and we’re overtaken by two funny old women with sticks for Nordic hiking. They went there for a walk!
I had to explain to them for a long time about the mines, de-mining, and “you can’t go there.” The old women either didn’t believe me, or weren’t afraid.
But we managed to force them out of the forest. I got an award for that, a certificate for good service.
Matvey. They’re mowing the grass today. Damned bastards. I hate that noise. And I just want the grass to be here.
I walked and looked at the cut-off heads of dandelions. A man overtook me, he was talking on the phone. I heard, “Oh, mom, they’re mowing the grass here! So short there’s only dust, no fresh air, nothing but dry dust!”
He walked on, and I watched him go and whispered, “Come back, come back, my heart, we’re meant to be together.”
News. The veteran urged Ukrainians to prepare for mobilization.
They can’t take everyone to war at the same time, because Ukraine has to keep functioning. However, “There will be a moment when someone who’s been at war for a year or two will get replaced by someone else. That means that eventually they’ll take everyone who hasn’t been there yet. Everyone will end up there.”
The veteran advised Ukrainians who are not at the front to get ready for service on their own.
Sasha. I think I strained my back at a training session. I booked appointments with a physiotherapist, kinesiologist, and massage therapist. All in the same clinic. A holistic approach is always better.
This clinic deals with recovery after training, rehabilitation after strokes and fractures, spine problems. Everything to do with bones and muscles, they work with it.
I go in, put on shoe covers – the clinic is empty. No one anywhere. I sit down on the sofa, page through the anatomical atlas.
The administrator comes out of the bathroom. Her eyes are swollen. She says, “I’m sorry. Vadim Nikolayevich will not be able to keep your appointment. Yaroslav Alekseevich is also not available.”
It turns out they went to an elderly woman’s home for a visit: she’s learning to walk after a hip fracture. On the way back, their car was stopped by a patrol. Both got conscription notices.
Soon there will be no one to work at all, aside from women.
News. In Kyiv, women fought a man off from the military officials.
The recruiters tried to seize a citizen who was trying to escape conscription. While the man was being dragged into a car, passersby, particularly women, intervened.
A military man, who had just gotten back from the front after being wounded, got involved in the scuffle. “He couldn’t control his emotions and tried to hit a civilian,” the recruitment office spokesman stated.
The passersby’s intervention helped the arrested man to escape. The Kyiv recruitment center insists they acted within the law.
Matvey. Today, I got into an elevator with a military man and his wife. I heard the wife’s furious monologue, which lasted for three floors. She was talking like this:
– I’m not fucking scared. I’ll fucking call that commander of yours and tell him to fuck himself. He wants to send you there so later I won’t even be able to get your corpse back for two years, like Natasha? So as usual they can pretend you’re missing in action? Fucking assholes. I’ll stab your commander and bury him.
I even felt like offering her my help.
Slavik. I went to my favorite cafe. Nothing special about their coffee, but the atmosphere was always good. Somehow everything there was smooth, no tension, service was quick and polite.
This time everything went wrong. Two new waiters, trainees or whatever, came twice to take my order, because they couldn’t remember it. In the end, they still didn’t bring the coffee I asked for. I’m thinking, well, okay.
The moment comes to pay – the two of them stare at the computer for about five minutes, they can’t find my order to print the bill. Then, they can’t figure out how to turn on the card reader. I suggest paying with cash because I have to leave, I don’t have time to wait there all day. They don’t have change. This is all frustrating, especially in the morning.
Of course, I didn’t feel like tipping them. What’s more, I wanted to complain to the manager. I’m a patient person, but these guys are too dumb.
And suddenly it hits me: what are these guys doing here at all? They look barely 18. Where are the waiters who always worked here and did a good job?
I realized they got mobilized, and it just knocked me out when I started to think about it. You get used to people, say hi to them, exchange a word, and then one day, they’re gone. Pulled out of your life. Or maybe out of life altogether.
The next day I went there again. The normal waiters still didn’t show up. Yes, clearly they’d been taken. It’ll be good if they come back at all. If not to this job, at least to the city. And on their own legs, not prostheses.
Of the new trainees, only one was there. I didn’t want to think that the second had gotten a conscription notice. He just failed the trial period and they kicked him out. Or he just didn’t want to work here.
They couldn’t have given him a conscription notice, he’s still a kid. He just found another job.
I didn’t ask anyone about him. For the new one who was still there, I left a nice tip on the table.
Sasha. My uncle called, dad’s older brother. He asked how dad was doing. I say: you communicate with him. He tells me: yeah, but you know him.
Well, yes. Dad tells everyone he’s fine. In general, that’s all he ever says.
Even before the war, he didn’t talk much.
There was only one thing he could talk a lot about: the Soviet Union and what a goatfuck it was.
Leonid. When I’d just started serving, the hardest thing was getting used to the fact that my time was no longer my own. Someone decides for me when I go to bed and when I get up.
You don’t belong to yourself.
Mikhail. A guy on the city bus. He’s sitting right in front of me talking on the phone. I can see the back of his clean-shaven head, but I can’t see his face.
He’s talking to a woman. You can hear something between a groan and a howl from the phone. The guy waits for breaks and gently speaks into the phone, “What do you mean you don’t know how to live? How did you live before me, before we met?.. Honey, what can I do?.. Honey, don’t cry, I need a positive attitude now… Look, I’m going to have a job, let’s say. Let’s just call it a job that I got. I used to go abroad to work, remember… Let’s say, now I’m going on a business trip to earn money. I’m going to be paid. We’re going to live well, you’ll see…”
Matvey. People in uniform are everywhere: at the entrance to the subway, at bus stops, in shopping centers. They stand and look at the people passing by. Some girls glance at them and smile. There was a time when I also thought men in uniform were hot.
I was dumb.
Now I walk past them and think about one thing: they should stop somebody, but not me.
They do stop some people passing by, and give them conscription notices. Someone starts arguing and tries to film them on their phone. They quickly surround him and push him behind the coffee shops. We all move on like nothing’s happening. The sun’s shining, there’s no air raid for the moment – life is good.
I don’t understand how they decide who to stop. After all, some men are still in the city, and hundreds of people pass by these thugs. Why do some people get stopped and others not?
They should stop somebody, but not me.
Philologist. We have new words to describe our life. For example, busification, from the word bus. Military officials drag people inside minibuses and forcibly take them away. Busification is just one of the synonyms for mobilization.
News. The manhunts will continue: today the regional recruitment center explained why conscription notices are issued on the streets.
“Only about 20% of people who must be mobilized according to our plan come voluntarily to enlistment offices. Without these searches and detainments, mobilization would be at risk.”
The Outsider enters.
Outsider.
One potato, two potato, three potato, four
Five potato, six potato, seven potato, more.
Outsider walks around the group of characters, selects Leonid and takes him away.
For a while, everyone is silent.
Sasha. Did he die?
Slavik. They just took him to serve.
Sasha. He already went to serve. Which means now he’s dead.
Everyone is silent.
Philologist. I’m standing in the middle of a subway platform. People push me from all sides.
Sometimes, this happens to me: moments of confusion, when I stand in a stupor and can’t wake up and move.
Before the war, there were trains every 5 minutes. Now, every 15 minutes. It’s to save electricity. So even more people than usual gather on the platforms.
They push me aside and press me against a column. I understand I won’t get onto the next train.
On the platform, you can hear words and phrases in different languages from phones. People hunch over their phones and try to repeat, talking over the hum of the crowd and the clatter of the train that just arrived at the opposite platform. Some phrases I understand:
“we saw a blue rabbit”;
“the cat has wings”;
“this man loves his husband.”
If the phrase is repeated correctly, the phone croaks happily and offers a new phrase. I mean, everyone knows this app. There are a million apps for learning languages now. I have a feeling that everyone around me has begun to learn languages because they have a specific hope. They hope that the metro will come, they’ll squeeze into it, and it will take them directly to Norway, Sweden, Brazil, the Netherlands.
Mikhail. Now I mostly travel by bus. My wife took the car to go to Poland and take our son there. He was 16 in February 2022. This summer he turned 18. If he’d stayed, they wouldn’t have let him out of the country, and then they would have taken him. I haven’t seen him all this time.
Matvey. My friend warns me, “Now the conscription notices are being distributed even more aggressively. Use transport carefully, otherwise you’ll end up in the LGBT troops.”
I tell her, “I mostly ride a scooter.”
She relaxes— “If you ride a scooter, then everything is fine, of course. They’ll look at you and think: some dumbass on a scooter, we don’t need him.”
In fact, I had to sell the scooter. I don’t earn enough to get by. You can’t get a new job without a military registration card.
News. In the Cherkasy region, two administrators of Telegram channels were sentenced to 5 years in prison.
They were convicted of disseminating information aimed to help Ukrainian citizens escape from mobilization under martial law. In particular, they disseminated messages about the places where conscription notices were being distributed by representatives of the regional recruitment centers.
Slavik. I mostly try to avoid transit. I prefer to walk. I especially like it when there’s an air raid. Aside from the unpleasant sound, there are plenty of nice moments.
For example, there aren’t as many people on the streets. During the air raid, some folks go down into the subway. Not everyone. Not many, to be honest, and every day fewer and fewer. But still, someone goes down, and then the streets get less crowded. You can walk and breathe, look at the architecture, look at the girls.
Although there have been a lot of disappointments lately. Sometimes I look at a girl, her face is beautiful, sweet. I always look at the face first. Then I look at her body, and she’s wearing shorts. It enrages me. I want to go up to her and say, “Why are you wearing shorts? If I’d only seen your face, and breasts, I’d fall in love with you. But you walk in front of me and show me your cellulite. You show your cellulite to everyone on the street. You and I cannot be together.”
Mikhail. If I call a taxi, the app allows you to rate the trip. There are options like “The car is clean”, “The driver knows the city well” and so on. And there’s an option “The driver is a great person to talk to.”
If the driver is quiet, I always give him the highest score as a great conversationalist.
The best conversation these days is to sit in silence.
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News. In the city of Dnipro, the body of a man was found in the bushes, with fragments of a grenade scattered nearby.
Preliminary findings indicate that the 54-year-old man committed suicide by blowing himself up with a grenade.
Enters Outsider.
Outsider.
Six little ducks went out one day,
Over the hills and far away.
Mummy duck said, “quack quack quack,”
But only five little ducks came back.
Sasha. (yells) Go fuck yourself! Get lost!
Outsider leaves.
News. Which students are not subject to mobilization?
According to Article 23 of the Law on Mobilization, those who are not subject to conscription during mobilization are, regardless of age, specialization, already accomplished education, etc.:
• students,
• graduate students,
• doctoral students,
• assistant trainees of higher educational institutions,
• applicants for professional vocational education and professional higher education,
• full-time or part-time students.
In Ukraine, the number of male students has significantly increased, especially those on temporary studies.
Men in Ukraine enjoy the right to attend a university in order to avoid mobilization. According to the Ministry of Education and Science, this year the number of non-funded students at universities has increased unprecedentedly – by 82%, if we’re talking about male students. There are fewer female students and students under 20 compared to last year. But the number of male students aged 30-50 has increased dramatically.
Philologist. Our society is going to become exceptionally educated.
In all seriousness, I was also thinking about going to study somewhere. But I couldn’t get myself organized. It’s like I’m in some kind of stupor.
News. Mobilization continues in Ukraine due to the full-scale invasion by the Russian Federation. On the Internet, they complain that Ukrainians eligible for military service cannot even get married without first registering in a recruitment center.
Slavik. My dear unmarried girls, don’t be sad! Now, if he doesn’t marry you (if I don’t marry you), this doesn’t at all mean that he (I) does not want to marry you. The marriage registry requires military registration. Without it, the application won’t be accepted. And they can issue you a conscription notice right at the marriage registry.
The desire to marry you cannot be stronger than the desire to live.
Philologist. Not all marriages are the same.
Website with explanations of legal norms. Persons eligible for military service are prohibited from crossing the border of Ukraine during martial law. However, there are a number of exceptions that still make it possible. In particular, men married to women with disabilities, while accompanying such women to travel abroad, have the right to cross the border.
News. “I’m even ready to marry an old hag.” Mobilization evaders are testing a new way to escape abroad.
A whole industry is developing in Ukraine with proposals to execute a fictitious marriage on a paid basis to allow men who are eligible for military service to make an escape to another country.
Among those ads, there are also some in which women are looking for women with disabilities. It turns out they do it to help the men they love leave the country.
Mikhail. It’s good that our citizens with disabilities are finally getting decent financial support, thanks to the new laws.
News. In the Odessa region, border guards detained a draft evader.
He had found an ad on the Internet about the possibility of marrying a woman with a disability in order to avoid mobilization, and leave Ukraine.
The “bride” and the “groom” got married in Odessa. Immediately on the day of the wedding, the “couple” went to the border.
At border control, law enforcement officers had suspicions about this couple. The age difference was more than 20 years: the man is 32, and the woman is 56. They were detained.
Matvey. Recently I was asked: if there was a woman who would promise to settle all my problems, buy me off of all the conscription notices and take me abroad, if she had the resources to do this, would I agree to sleep with her for it?
I said probably not.
Not with a woman.
Slavik. I’m depressed. I have a feeling that every beautiful girl has left the country.
Question in chat. If we get divorced and I give up my parental rights to the child, can it be arranged so my husband becomes the only guardian and leaves Ukraine with the child?
News. What doors will be closed for draft evaders in the future?
Usually, courts punish draft evaders with three years of imprisonment. The number of Ukrainian men who have received these terms has increased.
A criminal record affects a person’s future. After the release, some spheres of activity will be inaccessible to these people. In particular, they won’t be able to get a job in the civil service.
The Outsider enters.
Outsider (walking around the characters).
Five little ducks went out one day,
Over the hills and far away.
Mummy duck said, “quack quack quack,”
But only four little ducks came back.
Slavik. He doesn’t need me! He doesn’t need any of us! He just needs someone, it doesn’t matter who. He’s blind. He doesn’t know anything about us.
Outsider walks around the characters one more time and leaves.
News. Missile strike threat: 12 strategic bombers have taken off from a Russian airfield.
Philologist. After the special services destroyed the Telegram channels that warned about military patrols hunting for men, Telegram channels about the weather appeared. Now they post real time notices something like this, “At the central bus station, by the metro exit 2, a cloud is pouring rain on two men.” The cloud is a group of military officers with call-up papers.
Pasha. News from my apartment. A stupid fly flew into my room. I’ve kept the windows open all day, showed it where to fly, but it doesn’t get it. It crawls along the wall and bangs into the glass.
How to help these damn animals? I have no idea.
I don’t want to kill it. I can’t catch it either. I don’t like watching it choose a slow death locked up.
It’s even pretty, by the way. Large, striped gray. In the end, my house spiders will eat it. I cherish them, because they bring good luck and protect the place from evil forces like burglars and military enlistment officers.
Matvey. My ex called in a panic. He says, I can’t go into the kitchen.
Why, I ask.
He says in a trembling voice, there’s a spider, come here, do something.
I would have thought he was looking for a pretext to meet. But no. He really was always afraid of the dark, spiders, cops, dogs, thrillers, violence.
If they take him, I’m scared to think what will happen to him there.
News. They kick, swear and shoot: the Web discusses how military officers detain men.
Over the past 24 hours, several videos have appeared on social networks at once. They show the detention of civilians by people in military uniform.
“According to the law, representatives of the regional recruitment centers do not have the right to detain people and bring them to recruitment centers by force. This detention is an abuse of power and kidnapping,” the lawyer said.
He suggests that employees of regional recruitment centers may be applying these methods because they’ve been given a choice – either they staff military units with mobilized people, or they go to the front line themselves.
News. In the Lviv region, a group of unidentified men at night threw a grenade at the local recruitment office.
Mikhail. News of war crimes is terrifying. But there’s nothing surprising there. This is war. Is it possible to expect anything good from the enemy?
But when our own people torture each other, I lose heart.
News. In the Vinnitsa region in May 2022, a soldier in a state of alcoholic intoxication, during a verbal conflict, threw an RGD-5 combat grenade towards his fellow soldiers.
Several were injured as a result of the blast.
The court found the soldier guilty of attempted murder.
He was sentenced to ten years imprisonment.
Slavik. I went to the cinema with a girlfriend. Before the movie, as always, there are trailers of other premieres. And then a public service announcement, “sign up for the Armed Forces of Ukraine.”
A bunch of twelve-year-old children was sitting next to us. Don’t ask what movie my girlfriend and I went to see.
So, when the children heard the offer to enroll in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, they laughed and said sarcastically, “Yeah, sure, we’re already rushing there.”
But there was no girlfriend. I’d gone alone.
That day, this all hit me so hard that I just ran into the first cinema I came across. They were saving electricity, so the lobby was half-dark. It was soothing. It smelled of popcorn. I bought a ticket for the next movie available. It turned out to be 12+. Lots of children and parents with children came. The kids were surprisingly quiet. Maybe because the film was good. I don’t know, I couldn’t concentrate. Don’t ask me what movie I went to see. I don’t even remember the title, I kind of had a panic attack.
In the middle of the film, an air raid started. And here’s the strange thing: when the siren started to howl, I felt better. When you expect something bad, and it happens, you don’t need to be afraid anymore, because it’s already happened.
A woman leaned into the movie theater; she looked like a nice elderly school teacher. She started to explain that they have a basement in the cinema, and if someone wanted… If you go down to the basement, the tickets would remain valid for the next show, or you can bring them tomorrow. Everyone waved her off, laughing, and said they wanted to watch the film now.
Not a single child or adult left the almost full theater during an air raid alert.
Sasha. Over the past year, I haven’t been able to finish watching a single movie. It feels like if I dive into there for an hour and a half, I’ll leave the real world unattended, and they’ll start shelling where my dad is.
Movies, I don’t even try. I can’t even get through YouTube videos. I can’t concentrate even for ten minutes. I can still watch very short tiktoks.
Philologist. I went to a supermarket with a girlfriend. She started to look at all kinds of pink notebooks, pens with fluffy feathers, pencil cases shaped like cats. This had all been brought in for the new school year, even though it’s still a long way off.
My girlfriend loves little cute things. She reached for something and almost knocked over the whole pyramid of the stuff.
I tell her, “Be careful, don’t be a vandal.”
She tells me, “The Vandals are a group of ancient Germanic tribes. Do they have a problem here with people from other cultures? Are the employees of this store xenophobic?”
“Yeah, first you’ll have to explain to store security what xenophobia is.”
It’s good that we can somehow at least still joke.
Pasha. My wife brought a friend over to our place. She hasn’t invited anyone by for over a year now. Only our parents come to us.
At first, I thought she didn’t invite her women friends over because she was jealous. Somehow I even felt flattered. That she’d think someone could like me, even if I’m not in the best shape.
But gradually I realized: she’s just afraid to invite people she isn’t sure about. Now nobody can be sure about anyone. She’s afraid someone will report it: a man is evading mobilization, here’s the address.
I can’t go to war. It’s honestly impossible. I have a heart condition. Not a single normal medical board would accept me. But now they’re just shoveling everyone in. Absolutely everyone.
Our neighbor was caught on the street. He has two kids. If there are three kids, the man can get a deferment. If there are two kids, they don’t need a father.
The neighbor recently had a stroke. When he had the stroke, he fell and injured his spine. He still hasn’t recovered. He came to the medical examination and put x-rays of his spine on the table. The doctor said, “Your spine is perfect.”
His wife sobbed and howled. The children were confused. They didn’t understand where dad had gone. And dad was sent to Donbass. My wife went to comfort them. Then, she came home and said that she wasn’t letting me go anywhere anymore.
I don’t want to get drafted myself, but still, before my neighbor got taken away, I somehow lived, I moved around the city. And now, if I’m going to leave the apartment, my wife gets hysterical.
I recently ordered a new charger. Just a charger. The pickup point is in our neighborhood, very close. My wife turned white and said, “Don’t go there, I’ll pick it up myself.”
I haven’t left the house for over a year now. Good thing my job is remote.
So, my wife invited her friend. She isn’t pretty but she’s funny. I looked at her and thought how long it had been since I’d seen anyone from the outside world. Just people, no matter if they’re pretty or not. People who can freely walk the streets. They might be afraid of missiles, but at least not of draft officers.
I hope she doesn’t betray us.
News. Tricks of military registration and enlistment offices: what conscripts need to know.
According to a lawyer, there are abuses at military medical commissions. Many problems regarding the right to deferment as well.
“A very large number of people suffering from chronic diseases are sent to the front lines,” the lawyer said.
Philologist. There was a time when the word “fit” meant someone who was into sports.
Now, it means someone who is fit to be a soldier and can be sent to the war.
Ad. Offensive Guard. It’s time to regain what’s yours. The modern history of Ukraine is being written now. Don’t watch, act! Fill out a volunteer form and join the assault brigades of the Ministry of Home Affairs. They will liberate the cities of Donetsk, Luhansk and other occupied territories, including Crimea.
We guarantee combat on the front lines.
Philologist. “This is probably a very bad commander, because he needs brave soldiers. If he has enough sense for a good plan to defeat the enemy, then why does he need brave soldiers? Any soldiers will do. In general, when virtues are mentioned, it means the thing is rotten.”
I often remember these words now.
I heard them from the stage about ten years ago. Brecht, and also The Good Soldier Švejk were removed from the repertoire of the main theater in Kyiv shortly after Crimea happened. The agenda changed. It stopped feeling right to ridicule war, because little by little our own war was beginning.
Matvey. If they take me, maybe I’ll finally have sex? Maybe I’ll get fucked there for the first time in a year and a half?
Ad. A storm is coming. Offensive Guard.
Pasha. I hear children screaming in the courtyard below. They’re playing air raid. The girl climbs a pile of sand and screams with all her might. She is the siren. The other kids have to run and hide as quickly as possible.
News. A man in the Kyiv region was handed a conscription notice for listening to Russian rap on the street.
News. Thousands of Ukrainian men of military age are risking their lives trying to swim across the Tisza River on the border between Ukraine and Romania. At least 33 have drowned since the war began. The youngest was just 20 years old. The Ukrainian border service says the death toll could be much higher.
Matvey. I’m actually not in a position to complain. First, I’m alive. Second, I live in Kyiv, in a reasonable district. Outside of Kyiv, even before the war, it was better for me not to be there. In any small town, I would have been beaten up right at the railway station. Maybe even right in the train. My voice isn’t okay. My face isn’t okay. Clothes are not okay. “Come here for a talk, faggot.”
When I’ve traveled outside Kyiv, it’s mostly been by taxi, to the airport.
News. In the Odessa region, border guards detained a 26-year-old Ukrainian man who tried to leave Ukraine in women’s clothing
Sasha. They say that Europe is now learning all about the geography of Ukraine from the news. Nobody there knew anything about any Bakhmut, Mariupol, or Bucha before this war. But the fact is that inside Ukraine, we didn’t know that much about ourselves.
Who in their right mind would have gone from Kyiv to Bakhmut or Mariupol? If someone suggested we go there at least for a weekend, just to see it, we’d have been terribly offended. What kind of losers do you think we are? What is there to look at? Why go to the Sea of Azov when you can fly to Turkey?
If you don’t have the money to go on vacation abroad, it’s better not to go anywhere at all than to travel around Ukraine. We didn’t give a damn about all these towns and villages, even when the green trees were lush there, and when there wasn’t shooting there. That’s how we thought then.
It was possible to live all your life in Kyiv and not have a clue about these names on the map, the ones we’re dying for now. We’ve never seen them. We didn’t know those names here, just like real Europeans didn’t.
There were Kyiv, Odessa, Lviv, Kharkiv. Outside these cities, the world ended and the ocean began. There were fantastic islands. Lands where iron trees grew and dragons lived, giants, people with dog heads, one-legged.
Well, one-legged people, those aren’t ancient legends. Soon a lot of us are going to be like that.
Slavik. I ordered a laptop. The collection point was in a large shopping and entertainment center. I arrived there and wandered for a long time among food courts, boutiques, supermarkets, bowling alleys, cinemas. The last time I was here was before the war. Now half of everything has closed down. There were almost no people, and it was suddenly obvious how huge this building is – it’s the former work floor of an old factory.
So, there weren’t many people, and I could see everyone. A man in military uniform with crutches. A woman was holding him by the elbow. A lone guy in military uniform, also on crutches. Mother, father and little boy – the father in military uniform, in a wheelchair.
News. She called him a freaking cripple: a policewoman in the Kyiv region was fired for insulting a veteran.
Sasha. I got caught in a terrible rain shower. My sneakers were already falling apart, and now they got soaked top to bottom.
I have good sneakers for training, and worse ones to wear every day.
I’d just keep on walking, but I can’t afford to catch a cold now.
At that moment I was in the middle of the street, and the downpour hit very hard, without warning.
I started running, trying to figure out how much money I had on the card. I didn’t remember the exact amount.
I burst into the mall, found the sportswear section. I chose running sneakers. The money on the card was enough. I even bought new socks as well. Right there, on the sofa for trying on shoes, I put on clean, dry sneakers.
I threw the old ones into the store’s branded package. I wandered around the mall a little more, waiting for the rain to stop, and went outside.
Streams of water still rushed under my feet, but it was no longer pouring from the sky. I thought the old sneakers might be useful for someone. They can still be dried, glued, patched up.
I remembered that when I was running to the mall, I’d flashed past some arches, with courtyards behind them. I dove back into one of these arches. Yes, I remembered everything correctly: there was a courtyard and several garbage cans inside. I decided to leave the sneakers next to the garbage bin: someone will definitely pick them up.
I came closer to the garbage bin and froze. There were open shoeboxes on the ground. Dry ones. It looked like someone had taken them out just a few minutes ago. Shoes of all kinds. Gym shoes, sneakers, boots. And in every box – only the left shoe.
Someone came back from the war one-legged. He realized he’d never need half of his shoes again. He took them all outside. He’d kept his right leg, and he kept the shoes for it. And someone with only a left leg will pick up the discarded shoes.
I didn’t want to think about it.
News. A moment of silence. Every day at 9 am, Ukrainians remember those whose lives have been taken by the Russian-Ukrainian war.
We light candles and bow our heads during a nationwide minute of silence. We honor the memory of the citizens of Ukraine who gave their lives for the freedom and independence of the state: all the military, civilians and children, all those who died in the fight against the Russian invaders, and those who died as a result of the enemy troops attacking Ukrainian cities and villages.
Advertisement. Headstones. A large range of ready-made models. Various designs. Manufacturer’s prices.
Philologist. Update. I did the right thing when I skipped applying for post-secondary education this year. It would have been a waste of time.
You can pass all the exams, fulfill all the requirements, and then the university says: we can’t enroll you unless you’re registered at the enlistment office.
To register, you need to go to the regional Human Resources Center, aka the military enlistment office.
And you get a draft notice right there… When the whole point of getting a higher education now is not to get a draft notice.
I often think: they don’t need me. I mean, the Russians don’t need me. The military officers don’t need me. They just need someone, it doesn’t matter who. They have no idea who I am, what’s good and bad about me.
And I comfort myself that I won’t be taken away if I remain myself. If I remain myself, a personality. Because they don’t need personalities, they need statistics to fulfill their mobilization tasks.
And I comfort myself with a book that my ex-girlfriend gave me… In this book…
Enters the Outsider, silently takes Philologist by the hand and pulls him away.
Philologist. (hastily, to have time to tell it) This was my first girlfriend. She taught me how to smoke. She was a year older than me. We lived at her place all summer and sunbathed naked on the balcony. You don’t know anything about us, about her, you won’t take her away from me.
His voice fades away.
Mikhail. A girl came to me after an ultrasound. On the ultrasound, they found small cysts in her mammary glands and sent her to me for an examination.
She entered with two telephones in her hands and was constantly looking from one to the other. Something important to her was happening there, and she didn’t pay much attention to me.
I liked it. It kind of made it easy.
Often girls are frightened by the mere words on the appointment card: a mastologist-oncologist. They’re afraid to hear the word “cancer” from me. They come in and sit like they’re paralyzed. They’re trying to read the diagnosis from my facial expression. It is unsettling, even after all these years.
This one didn’t even look at me.
In fact, she really had nothing to worry about. I immediately saw from the ultrasound images that the cysts were small and didn’t pose any danger.
But I still did everything I had to. She undressed, I probed her lymph nodes and breasts in a sitting position, in a lying position. I asked if it hurt. She didn’t feel any pain.
I let her get dressed and sat down to draw up the conclusion. She got dressed and picked up her two phones again.
“You’re fine,” I said. “This evil thing hasn’t touched you.”
“That’s good,” she replied. “There’s enough evil in the world right now.”
And then I said,
Whoever desires to love life
and see good days,
let him keep his tongue from evil
and his lips from speaking deceit;
let him turn away from evil and do good;
let him seek peace and pursue it.
She looked up from her phones for the first time and looked at me.
“It’s the Bible,” I explained. “The first epistle of St. Peter.”
She didn’t seem at all surprised that she came to the mastologist, and he was quoting the Bible.
“Good book,” she said. “I like that thing about the lilies, who don’t have to work to get clothes, but are always well-dressed and beautiful.”
I took a Bible out of my desk drawer and quickly found what she was talking about:
And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? If then you are not able to do as small a thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest? Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass, which is alive in the field today, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith!
“The Gospel of Luke,” I explained. “The Apostle Luke was a doctor.”
“I thought the apostle Luke was a painter.”
She was not at all surprised that the mastologist had a Bible in his desk drawer.
We share an office with a gynecologist. One day, he sees patients here; the other day, I see patients here. Therefore, there are several huge colored posters on the walls: ovaries, uterus, uterine appendages, bladder. She wasn’t at all surprised that I was sitting under these posters and reading the Gospel.
The End
The Mercurian 