☆ Starz ☆

Our life is not as horrible as theirs. We are not in the trenches. My loved ones are safe and sound. Electricity is available. Grocery stores are open. All my friends, close and distant, often (in fact, all the time) talk about a deep sense of shame. A shame to live when others are dying; a shame to eat when people out there are starving; a shame to desire something when so many people have no desires whatsoever. Psychologists call this feeling “survivor’s guilt.” Well… I would not be so sure. We are “survivors” at this moment. The minute I am writing this line. At this moment, we are not in the trenches, and the electricity is available. It is curious, though, that the soldiers defending us on the frontlines sometimes (not all the time, I hope) feel guilty too: for doing something not well enough; for not being on the battlefield; for being alive; for not doing more. I am not thinking about the normal/abnormal state of mental health against the backdrop of a large-scale war with the cannibals. I am thinking about them, the cannibals “repeating their grandfathers’ heroic deeds” and their slogan: “I am not ashamed.” Fuck you. Our country is choking on the feeling of guilt for all the could-haves and should-haves, while the I-am-not-ashamed hashtags stick out of the abyss of hell.   Not ashamed to kill, loot, rape, and piss their pants after being captured. Not ashamed to know that they target their missiles and drop their bombs on civilians. Not ashamed to be happy about getting a fur coat looted from an apartment whose owners were most probably murdered. Not ashamed to lie; not ashamed to curse; not ashamed to threaten the whole world with a naked ass crowned with the nuclear button. But now I understand why. The feelings of shame and guilt indicate the ability of the brain to process difficult emotions. It has not been established yet whether cats and dogs can feel shame. Well, it’s clear with the cats. At the house where a cat lives, everything belongs to the cat — it is its two-legged slave who must be ashamed. It gets more complicated with dogs. They are believed to pretend to feel shame or guilt. At least, they can fake it.    But russians? No. In the surrounding world, some animals can feel shame, but plants, minerals, and products of human labor — cannot. A rock, a rose, a tank cannot feel ashamed. Can a russian be a rose? Definitely not.

Excerpt from the flash essay "Olena Stiazhkina: Kyiv. March 24" from the collection “Wars. Ukrainians. Humanity”.

It is the 900th day of Ukraine's resistance against full-scale russian aggression. We are still here, and we will get our freedom and peace.

Everyone who is reading this: I’m so glad you’re alive. I’m so proud of you. You are loved. I’m here. Don’t give up, we’re almost there.

Dave.exe