"Do you hear, it seems like the siren again?
And explosions?
Yes... let's go to sleep.
Okay.
Today, just like yesterday, like all these days, I slept very soundly.
More soundly than anywhere in the past year.
It's been a year since we left, and a year later, returned.
It's hard not to sleep for a whole year where there are no explosions and air raid alarms.
And here, it's easier for me.
Because I'm home.
I'm where everything is mine, and I won't give it to anyone.
Still, there's something in the air that I can't explain.
In the supermarket near our house, soldiers are in line.
I explain to the child that thanks to them, we can sleep.
She's little, just a year and a half, and she silently stares at the dirty-green streaks on their camouflage and stays silent.
At home, I ask her, 'Eva, do you like it here in Kyiv?'
She joyfully shouts, 'Yes!!!'
And nods her head in affirmation.
It's hard to leave again, I don't want to, I'm tired.
No sleep again?
But there's something heavy in the air, between the lines.
Everything seems like it was before, but not quite the same.
And I seem to be the same, but entirely different.
The dirty-green camouflage has embedded itself under the skin forever during yet another endlessly short spring."
— Maria Kulikovska