Happy Birthday

By Maryna Prykhodko

We're climbing up a hill in a residential neighborhood outside Kharkiv. This is considered a safer part of the city because it's just a little farther from the East, and the russians aren't actively attacking it yet. But we hear everything and, as I'm about to find out, we see everything.

"You're going to love it," my friend says to me over his shoulder. He's tall, and his strides are long, so no matter how fast I walk, I'm always behind him. My brother and his wife impatiently walk beside me. My brother's wife is nervous; she doesn't like to be in unfamiliar places, especially these days. My brother is content; he just loves the thrill.

It's 8:00 pm on my birthday, June 6, and Ukraine is at war. Curfew hasn't started yet, and no air raid alarm is going off. The four of us left the mound of dishes in the kitchen behind after coming home from the picnic we had by the forest a little earlier; we finished it off with tea and cake at the kitchen table.

This is a game we're all playing. It's a game where we try to see who can hold a sense of normalcy the longest, who can ignore the sirens, the blasts, the news, and the horror before breaking. What does it mean to break? I'm not sure. I don't think anyone has done it yet. Although, my brother's wife is pretty close. We're all constantly at the edge, staring down the darkness, but we don't dare to jump.

"How much farther do we have to walk? Curfew is going to start soon, and then it's going to be too dark to even walk back home," my brother's wife says. We walk past quaint houses, and there's no one else around. It feels like this part of the neighborhood was forgotten long before the war, but it is still unusually empty. Half of Kharkiv has left, and it's hard to get used to seeing this once-vibrant city as a shell of its glorious self.

"We're almost there," my friend assures us as he slightly picks up the pace and turns onto a wooded pathway. The sun has begun to set, but it's still bright outside. It's going to be a beautiful summer sunset, but when the sun sets, the bombs start falling. Everyone knows this.

It doesn't feel like my birthday, despite how hard my family tried to act like nothing was different about it this year. I felt guilty for not putting on a more brave face and going along with the act for their sake. I couldn't help thinking that every birthday toast was also a eulogy for something. Everyone was holding back the words they really wanted to say.

We finally reach the clearing at the very top of the hill. It is a vast, open field covered in wildflowers. A few bees are still busy at work; some rabbits dart in and out of the forest into the clearing before disappearing. It feels like we are on another planet altogether. The light around us is warm, and the crickets are already gently singing their songs as we cross from one side of the clearing to the other via a small dirt path.

When we finally stop, it becomes clear what we came up here to see. From the corner of the clearing at the top of the hill, all of Kharkiv is visible. It is far away, but you know what you're looking at, and it is beautiful. From this vantage point, you feel as if you have not only Kharkiv but the entire world in front of you–for us, though, Kharkiv is our world. We quickly start pointing out all the buildings and roads we recognize, competing to see who could make sense of the seemingly identical blocks of gray buildings spanning kilometers.

"Don't get too excited," my friend says. "You can see Belgorod from here, too. That's where they're firing at us from."

My heart sinks. I forgot. For a moment, I forgot—not about the war, which is impossible to forget, but about how close we are to death. It's right there, just tens of kilometers away. It feels wrong to even look at it. The enemy. The country that is trying to kill us. It's so close, looming over my beloved Kharkiv. What gives it the right?

"They have all their heavy technology right up on the border. Every night at 11:00 pm, they just start pounding the city. They don't even aim anymore; they don't care who or what gets hit. It's just a boring job for them," my friend explains. He's calm, but only because the panic and worry have already passed for him. No one can remember what life was like before this. My brother and his wife nod in agreement. My friend goes off on a tangent. We're all taking in the view before us, looking at the city, and doing our mental calculations.

I start to think about my godfather and his family–my family. Their town is occupied and has been since the first days of the invasion. The occupiers are not violent with them, not like in Bucha or Irpin, but they have already given out Russian birth certificates and passports to the local population. I recently heard someone explain that the occupiers were not as violent in the occupied territories of Kharkiv because the soldiers were actually just local guys from Belgorod. They can go home on the weekends and spend time with their families. It was the killing squads, on the other hand, that were sent into the Kyiv region. What if it had been the opposite? I shudder and force myself not to think about how close we've come to standing on a massive civilian grave and not just a clearing at the top of a hill?

My frantic thoughts cease, and my friend stops talking as we all watch it happen: a beam of light in the distance, rising up into the sky. It takes no more than 10 seconds for it to disappear into the clouds. My mouth agape, I begin to think, as this has never happened to me before, and I worry that maybe it is flying straight at us. That's what they say, you know: when russian rockets are flying in your direction, you don't see or hear it until it's too late. What do I do? Should I run and hide? There's no bunker here. It's not safe anywhere. Why did we come up here? Am I going to die on my birthday?

"Iskander," my friend says to me when he notices my hands trembling.

"It's a long-range rocket; it wasn't meant for us. It's probably heading towards Kyiv. We'll find out where it landed tomorrow morning, how many people it killed," my brother says matter-of-factly. I look at him in disbelief. This mythical object with such a poetic name–the thing I only ever saw on TV and computer screens–was now visible right before my eyes. I wasn't supposed to see this, but it's ingrained in my memory forever. Light driven by evil and destruction, on its way to faithfully carry out its duty. I stand in disbelief. I'm not really sure how to react to what just happened. I wish I could say that we all had some brave reaction, like in the movies, but in reality, we just stand there and curse the sky. We need to get moving before curfew and before it's too dark to see where we are going. We run down the hill, driven by the adrenaline rush of what we've just witnessed.

It's hard to accept not staying out into the late hours of the summer, wandering aimlessly and enjoying our youth. We were once so obnoxious, but we were so free, and no one dared to take that away from us. We used to do everything on a whim, and we didn't care about the consequences. When you're young in Ukraine, there are no consequences. There is just destiny.

But that was before. Now we fear the night and its consequences. We live February 24 over and over and over again. We cannot move on. We clutch to moments of joy and sink our teeth into even the briefest moments of satisfaction because these are such rare things for us now. We hate what we have become, but we promise to get our revenge for this untimely and unwanted halt to the natural flow of our lives. For now, we run.

We run back down the street of too-quiet houses, hoping we won't get chased by dogs. The stray cats barely give us any notice. The last-remaining grandmas are already shuffling their way upstairs into their apartments, abandoning their posts on the benches by playgrounds. The last men on the streets are locking up their garages for the night after spending hours waiting in line for gas and diesel. All the kids on the block are already in bed or brushing their teeth. The women are nervously shutting the curtains and flicking off the lights. Curfew has begun. All lights inside and outside have to be turned off. No signs of life can be detected by the enemy.

"Happy birthday, Maryna," my friend calls out to me as he runs past us to his building.

"Be safe," I call back as my brother, his wife, and I enter our own building to escape the darkness.

The crickets continue to sing as the night fully takes over. As always, we'll see the outside world the next day if we survive.