The personal micro story of war I’m about to tell came to me thanks to a Tinder match from a few years ago.
At that time, I was out to have fun, or dump meas they say here in Spain, after 6 very long and long months of chemotherapy due to breast cancer (which I named Mariah, by the way, because the bixo was like the screams of M Carey*).
Yeah, I got on Tinder during chemo, in frankly shameless unapologetic sexy alien mode, as I say. It was very interesting, and a learning experience. But that’s a cause for another day.
;;;;
When I met Tony (yes, names changed), he was coming from Los Angeles to Barcelona as a member of entourage from a New Zealand band that I loved.
Nothing happened between us other than a buua comradedági and a very welcome VIP ticket to the Unknown Mortal Orchestra concert at a big local festival. Xapei, we exchanged contact, I never saw him again.
(band bôua pa poha, only)
Go cattle, pass cattle, and behold, Tony reappears this week on my bebebuqui timeline, which I see from time to time. Like many, suddenly no longer über talking about Covid, but about Ukraine.
In your case, however, from a personal point of view.
Until a few days ago, Olena, his Ukrainian girlfriend, was under siege in Kharkiv, the country’s second largest city, with her mother. The two, like others, are isolated in the garage of the building where they live, hastily turned into a bomb-proof bunker.
Kharkiv, approximately 500 km from the capital Kiev, was attacked by land and air last Tuesday (01). Bombs were dropped in the center of the city, in Praça da Liberdade, hitting government and cultural buildings around and killing more than a dozen people. The deaths came to add to another 16 from previous days in other bombings.
Olena managed to send her teenage son to the border with his father. The idea, like that of many: trying to get into Poland. It hasn’t happened yet – the line is gigantic, and the boy will apparently have to fend for himself, because his father was recruited to fight in the war.
After a week stranded, mother and daughter managed to escape to a nearby town, where they wait to see how-when-where to get out. What to do. What will happen.
Такeverything is uncertain in this absurd scenario, except for a small breath: for the first time in many days, says Tony in a post with 8147058 likes and sympathetic comments, they will be able to sleep without the dread of an imminent deadly attack.
For a while.
***
Meanwhile, the name of Zhenya Mykhailenko, a chef and owner of a small chain of restaurants in Kiev, also reached my ears through mutual friends.
With the first attacks, he started using the supplies in his kitchens to prepare meals for Ukrainian troops, hospitals and people in shelters and streets. In addition, two of his restaurants are being used as bomb shelters.
The initiative became a joint effort-crowdfunding. It can help here.
***
The title of this article is wrong. Now I think. A heart unites. Unite, people.
​
* women (y men, which are 1% of cases): do your exams!!!!! Examine breasts, hearts, the belly that growls and waits, the fear of the day before yesterday and of what will never come. Let’s examine the streams, bridges, chasms that separate us, that shut up before the Goodbye-and-Thanks. Suddenly, among so many, another war breaks out: an alien attack, and yet – If the absurd inhabits the corner, let’s dance: humans, human beings! Humanity at home, on the bus, on the working day; in the love of one night, of a thousand, in the comments of this newspaper. I want to see us dedicate tears to the next one who is not on TV too. That the deepest war begins within the chest and ends beyond sight. And I love him… too.
