Yesterday, in an unfamiliar woman, I recognized my own mother.
She wasn’t actually her, but the hairstyle and the color of her hair were so similar that I caught myself thinking:
“huh, how strange it is sometimes, how a single familiar detail can make you feel like you somehow know another person too, and because of that it becomes hard not to feel yourself somewhere nearby with them, in the same situation”.
That mother, after a Russian strike hit a residential building, stood for hours watching the rubble being cleared. By afternoon, my own mother told me that her daughter had stayed in contact until the very last moment, but after another collapse, the signal disappeared. The parents held on to hope for a miracle until the very end.
I recognize a voice that sounds like that of a friend I once had — in a completely different girl. She’s with a guy whose tone even reminds me of the one she used to date back then, the one I never really got along with — and the one she later cried to me about after their messy breakup, before getting back together with him again.
They are trying to evacuate from a building, around which strikes and interceptions are still happening. He tries to shield her with his body and calm her frightened voice, which in some distant way reminds me of how my friend used to react to horror movies — but she never sounded like this, not with this real, cold terror.
I realize that I actually don’t know at all how that friend of mine reacts to explosions at night or during the day. We haven’t spoken in a long time, even before the full-scale invasion began.
In a way, none of us truly knows each other, but I’ve heard both of them in some of the harder moments of their lives.
This frame is familiar to me too — like the ones I used to take after walks with friends, to later set as my phone wallpaper or post to my stories.
I don’t recognize this extra element in the sky, although by now it is more familiar than something I wouldn’t know.
I don’t recognize anyone in this frame.
I recognize the building — one of many old historical structures across the city. But I don’t know exactly where it is.
The fire from the strike looks far more familiar to me.
I recognize the square in the city center very well, but I don’t know these people — just some volunteers who came to plant a tree.
I wish I could recognize more people in moments like this.
My Dnipro has been under frequent shelling these past days.
