Near the end of his Ukrainian New York account, Petro remembers going farther into a dugout. There was a small stove fuelled by trench candles. His feet were wet. Still wearing body armour, he fell asleep from exhaustion. The scene is intimate and unadorned.
I went farther down into the dugout. We had a little stove fuelled by trench candles, a small source of warmth in that cold hell. I took off my boots. My feet were wet. Then, still wearing my body armour, I collapsed into sleep. I was so exhausted that I heard nothing. I did not hear people coming in, things falling, or the world carrying on without me.
From Petro’s personal account of a day in Ukrainian New York, February 2022.
A body that could go no further
After the descriptions of fighting and shelling, the focus narrows to warmth, boots and sleep. These details bring the reader close to the physical effort of surviving the day. The narrator is no longer describing the whole position; he is remembering what his own body could manage.
The small stove provides a point of warmth inside a harsh memory. Petro does not describe comfort in any ordinary sense. He describes enough of a pause for exhaustion to take over, even while he was still wearing protective equipment.
This passage has emotional force because it stays with ordinary needs. Warm feet and undisturbed rest are easy to take for granted. Here, they become a way to understand how much the day had demanded. On Petro’s homepage, readers can learn more about the person who carried that exhaustion.
Read Petro’s story and find ways to help on the homepage. You can also share his homepage with others.
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