Mothers look at their sons returning from the war and don’t recognize them - aggressive animals standing before them. Wives look at their husbands and see men who are angry at the whole world, who don’t believe in anything except death. Yesterday’s soldier belongs neither to his parents nor to his closest family. He belongs to the war, from which only his body, or its miserable remains, have returned home...
How to explain the war to someone who’s never fought? It’s like trying to explain how the colour green feels to a blind person. It’s like… a husband who can never understand what it means to bear and give birth to a child. But, he continues to wait ... Why and for what? He himself doesn’t know the answer...
He can’t believe that it’s all over and there are no consequences... He’s probably waiting for an explanation... Waiting for someone to come up to him and say: “Brother, I know where you were. I’ve been there and I know why you fought.” It’s so important - to know why... Why have so many of his brothers died in the war? Why did they have to kill so many other people? But nobody talks about it...
And then, suddenly, he, yesterday’s soldier - begins talking... He takes a pen and paper and writes the first sentence... The words come pouring out... He doesn’t yet know what it will be - a story, a poem or a song...
But, each sentence causes profound pain; each word is like the fragment of a shell torn from his feeble body. He feels this pain deeply. The war itself bursts from within his body and falls on the paper before him. The words lash out, shake him, whip him… he no longer sees letters, words or sentences… he’s no longer here – he’s there again, and again, and again...
Death is everywhere, and the room is filled with whispers, loud cries, agony and fear; the wounded cry out for mercy, people burn in raging fires, and the maddening endless whistling of shells continues overhead...
Then he sees them… hundreds and hundreds rising from their graves, and there are so many of them, so very many.
He sees everyone that he’s ever loved; he watches as his fallen brothers slip quietly by before his eyes... They lean toward him, and their whispering fills the room: “Come on ... Come on, brother, tell them how we burned alive in the trenches! Tell them how we wept when the checkpoints were totally surrounded and the mortars exploded around us! Tell them how our bodies jerked and shook when bullets hit us. Tell them! You survived because we died – you owe it to us! You must tell everyone! They should know! No one can leave without knowing what war really is!”…
And the words, soaked in blood and suffering, pour forth, one after the other, and the bottle of horilka drowns them out in the still darkness… and death and insanity embrace him, pushing him to the edge, correcting every one of his words... And so, yesterday’s soldier - shell-shocked, confused, patched up, half-mad, dulled and exhausted – sits in the shadows and writes and writes...
He moans weakly as grief overcomes him, and tears flow down his cheeks and settle in his stubble beard...
And then, finally, he understands that he should never have returned from the war…
