For the 22-year-old soldier

Explosions, gunshots and crying. These are the most common sounds in a war. These sounds are combined with the silence in the now deserted cities, which people either left to save themselves or left with their last breath. It is difficult, if not impossible, for a man in a country with conscription not to think of these sounds, these days.

I think that just like my Ukrainian peers, a neighbor to the east might force me to take up arms. As I contemplate this, I am petrified; I do not hide my fear, neither of death nor of the horrors of war. I don't know if I have it in me to kill and be killed. But I know that when I have to, I will. Just as another 22-year-old in Ukraine, with similar dreams, similar interests and a similar life to me, will be forced these days to kill and be killed for his country. I dedicate, these few things I write, to him; hoping he survives and emerges unscathed.

Then I turn back to myself and wonder, whether I pay each peaceful day its due respect. If I don't, then there is no greater wake-up call to me than the image of this soldier. As long as I do not hold a weapon in my hands, as long as I am awakened by dreams and not nightmares, and as long as I hear the varied sounds of peace against the few sounds of war, I must pursue everything that brings joy to this world.

I don't know if I would dare share these thoughts with someone who is a soldier in a war he didn't choose. Many of these words would be hollow in the face of what he went (and still is) going through. But I'm writing for all of us who today don't carry a gun but one day may need to. Let’s love peace in its presence not in its potential future absence. Let us respect peace now that we understand, better than ever, that it is not a given.

I don’t know how long this war will last. I also don’t know if, as I am writing this, the 22-year-old soldier, continues to breathe. I do know, of course, that day by day the probability diminishes. Since you are not in the same circumstances as him, however, live the life that war deprived him of. You owe it to both of you.