Twinkle Toes

This is the memory of a 16 year old girl Katya from Mariupol. I translated it to English and I cried while translating. Please read this. Don't scroll. Don't be ignorant and indifferent.

Do you know the feeling of pain? Once I fell in love with a boy but he didn't love me back, and I thought that it was painful. Turned out that the real pain is to see your mother dying with your own eyes. And to see your brother coming to her again and again, asking her: "Mommy, please, don't sleep, you'll freeze". And we'll never visit her grave. She got left in the cold and dark basement.

We peed, slept and ate our last portions of food in the same basement.

Once uncle Kolya caught a pigeon, I think on the fifth or sixth day, and we fried it and we ate it. And then we all puked.

Mom held on until the end, she died three days before we evacuated.

I told my brother that she's sleeping deeply and that we shouldn't wake her up. But, I think, he understood everything. He understood back then when our lady neighbor died and we couldn't put her outside and she started smelling. And then it became quiet for awhile, uncle Kolya put her outside and got blown up by a hidden grenade (my note, this word "rastyajka" means a grenade with a string attached to it, not a stray bomb. It was put to kill civilians coming out from the basements). Mom cried a lot. After Dad's death, uncle Kolya was the closest person to us.

The dead bodies stink so much.

They were everywhere. I closed my brother's eyes with Mom's scarf so he didn't have to see it. When we were running I almost threw up several times.

I don't believe in your god anymore.

If he existed, we wouldn't have had to suffer so much. My Mother never, you hear me, NEVER did anything bad. She never even left uncle Kolya in another room until she got married. She went to church and confessed often, and so did I. Uncle Kolya gave up smoking so Mom wouldn't worry about him sinning. And your god took her away. The pastor told me something about her helping god there, but it would be so much better for her to help god here, by bringing us up.

I hate russia.

My own uncle is there. Do you know what he said to me today on the phone? "Katya? Which Katya? Girl, I don't know you. What war, which Katya?". And then he wrote me from a different number: "Katya, don't write me. It's dangerous for me and my family. And your mom won't come back".

I hate them! It was his own sister?! How possibly can a person do this???

You know what? I think I'm going to come back to Mariupol. And I'm gonna live on the same place as before. And everyday come into the basement of the new building to put flowers.

It's also scary when the kids cry when it's forbidden. It's forbidden because we needed to not be heard.

These monsters found people in the basements and killed them. Those, who survived, told us that the russian soldiers could rape kids, the elderly and even dead bodies.

If there is a god, why does he let it happen?

I don't want to live anymore. We may be separated now, I suppose. I may not ever see my brother again. And why? Why did this putin "save" us? We lived so well, we even bought a car. Uncle Kolya promised to teach me how to drive. And they even burned the car. And our flat is no more. I want to die and I can't.

Please, hug your kids! Otherwise when you die, they might not remember your smell. If I handle it all and have kids, — I'm going to hug them 24/7.

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This is it. Now it's time for you to do your part. Do a tag game, tag all your mutuals, do EVERYTHING BECAUSE THIS SHIT IS IMPORTANT. THIS IS MY HONEST HUMAN SCREAM TO YOU AND I SCREAM TO YOU TO SPREAD THIS MEMORY. THIS IS THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS, NOT OSCARS, NOT MEMES, NOT EVERYDAY LIFE. EVERY DAY OF WAR, EVERY DAY WE DON'T GET OUR VICTORY IS THE DAY WE LOST MORE OF OUR INNOCENT PEOPLE. MAKE A GODDAMN CHANGE, PEOPLE!!!