# Literary Maneuvers April 2022: Leaving Ukraine



## Harper J. Cole (Mar 31, 2022)

*Literary Maneuvers April 2022
Leaving Ukraine*​
Introduction
It's a topical topic, but it can be interpreted many ways. How will you leave Ukraine?

650 words max., deadline 23:59 GMT / 18:59 EST, Saturday, 16 April
If you win, you'll get a badge pinned to your profile, plus the chance to enter our Feb 2023 *Grand Fiction Challenge*, which carries cash prizes.






Judging

Judges this month include *Non Serviam, PrairieHostage* and I think *Vranger* also.  I could do with some more though! If you'd like to volunteer, please let me know via PM or in the Coffee Shop. If you wish to know more about scoring, take a look at the NEW JUDGING GUIDE which also includes a template to use for your scoring. Please use this template for consistency.

Additional

All entries that wish to retain their first rights should post in the LM WORKSHOP THREAD.

*All anonymous entries will be PMed to myself and please note in the PM whether you want your entry posted in the workshop.*

Please check out our Rules and Policies for extra details on the LM contests.

Everyone is welcome to participate, including judges. A judge's entry will receive a review by their fellow judges, but it will not receive a score, though some judges are happy to let you know their score for you privately. Please refrain from 'like'-ing or 'lol'-ing an entry until the scores are posted.

Judges: If you could send the scores no later than* April 30th,* it will ensure a timely release of results. Much later than that and I will have to post with what I have. Again, please see the Judging Guidelines if you have questions. Following the suggested formatting will be much appreciated, too.


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## TerraLiga (Apr 3, 2022)

Sniper

It is bitterly cold here in Kyiv, despite a clear and sunny Spring sky. Waiting patiently and perfectly still for a target to cross my sights gives me no opportunity to get warm. A bracken-lined 'nest' is no substitute for bricks and radiators. My hands are so cold that I'm not sure I could manage to pull the trigger when needed. Thankfully, I haven't had to yet. 

For a month I have moved from one damp, freezing ditch to another with little food to satisfy me. I can only move at night to exercise, eat and go to the toilet, but my squad does its best to check on me and bring an occasional drink - usually alcohol liberated from one of the deserted shops. A week ago they brought me a set of thermal underclothes; so overwhelmed was I that I admit to shedding tears of gratitude. Soon, I will feel the warmth of Summer and we will have won this damned crazy war. I yearn for the moment I can go back into the arms of my beloved wife and handsome baby son. Their photograph I keep before of me is my only comfort.

I am not a soldier. I graduated in horticulture last year to help on the family farm and our busy vegetable stall in the local market. It's not an easy life, but we are rewarded in ways other than money. Together as a family, nurturing life from seed to crop is hard but satisfying work. I learned this skill from my parents, just as my son will learn from me.

Our battleground is utter devastation. The buildings that were once homes to families like mine are now nothing but rubble. Craters have been hewn out of tree-lined roads and cafe squares. Smoking hulks of steel, and bodies - ours and theirs - lay twisted and crumpled between this carnage. This scene played out in my sights, devoid of any remaining colour, is horrific. Only my photograph portrays any sign of life.

It's late afternoon and there is more shooting close by. I have heard sporadic gunfire from us and them all day. We often fire hopeful volleys into suspected positions to make them think twice about occupying anywhere too close to us. But no, this is different.

There is screaming and shouting from my squad, someone has been hit! It's Andriy, I recognise his voice.

An explosion! That was a grenade - not ours. Lots of screaming now.

I can't see anything from my concealed position, but I can't stay here. My Dragunov sniper rifle is not designed for close-quarter fighting - I'm helpless. After hours of laying prone, my body is too stiff and lifeless to move at speed, but I must move. Crawling on all-fours through the undergrowth, my blood is managing to work its way back into circulation so I can run.

Gunshots and grenades are behind me! I hear shouting and screaming just yards away. "Glory to Ukraine!" they shout. They are here - the enemy are here. We have been ambushed. North. I check for the sun and run north to safety - all the way to Belarus if I have to.

Bullets zip past me, shredding the shrubbery and branches either side. Left and right I dart to avoid being hit. Ahead is the HQ truck of my unit, men scrambling to climb inside before it pulls away. Reaching out with both arms, the guys in the truck pull me aboard. "Go, go, go" I scream, pulling up the tailgate behind me. Bullets rip through the canvas as we drive, but nobody is hit.

My thoughts are with my squad I left to behind as we speed through the pink and white orchard trees, their blossoms being blown behind us like confetti. I am safe. From this horror, I have escaped.


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## SueC (Apr 4, 2022)

*Sticky Hands*
(650 wds)


I am an omniscient observer. I have no voice, save _truth._

The sounds come first and then the earth shakes; debris fills the sky. Buildings rend, shattered windows rain down. Brick and mortar, small mementoes from someone’s bedroom, litter the ground. Gunfire in the distance.

There lay a broken doll and some lad’s stuffed teddy bear. Nearby, tiny bodies of children lie still, their parents unable to rouse them.

Housing structures are burned out, empty. Weeks ago, they held families. When walking down the path, one could hear babies crying for their dinners and music on a radio, people laughing, having fun, making love, not knowing what is to come.

There’s Sofi, a tiny girl, walking beside her _Papochk, _Ivan, holding his hand, stepping slowly and carefully so as not to trip or fall into the debris and disappear forever. They both wear backpacks, hers tiny with pink hearts, his large and utilitarian. They’d been walking for hours and now she’s warm, her little hand feeling sticky in her Papa’s. One lavender knee sock has grown tired of being brave, slipping down in a small lump atop her brown shoe. The other sock hangs on midway, struggling to live up to its name.

The two press on, their goal the train station. They’re not alone, traveling with other torn and fragmented families. Fathers glance at other fathers in unity, sometimes a tear glistens in the fading light of day. They all know they cannot leave with their children. It’s an allusion for the moment, for their babies losing their childhood. They try to bolster each other with nods and chin juts as teardrops slip off grizzled cheeks and noses, wiped away quickly with the back of a hand.

“_Gde Mama_?” She unexpectedly asks, looking up at him as they climb the broken steps to the station. He stops, afraid to speak. Hearing her question, the father behind them puts a hand on Ivan’s shoulder but quickly moves past, the pain too fresh for him.

“_Mama doma_,” he answers softly, praying his little Sofi really believes that her mother is home. Just a little while longer, he thinks, before the reality of her loss must bloom like a dark, evil weed in her heart.

They’ve reached the platform. Ivan kneels in front of Sofi, putting his hands on her shoulders. Everyone around them vanishes as if in a dream and they only see each other. A small moment in time, but one she will remember for the rest of her life, his ravaged face imprinted in her memory.

“Sofi,” he begins, words tumbling out of his mouth. He wants to assure her, wants to take away her fear and worry, wants to keep her safe, but he can only tell her to be a good girl and obey her _Tetya_ Olga.

“_Ya tebya lyublyu”_ he says as he holds her to him tightly and then stands again to walk to the open doors of the train car. There are so many women and children, but then his sister Olga reaches out for Sofi, pulling the child to her. He knows he must let go.

It is so crowded, but the two find a seat near a filthy window on the station side. Sofi is excited because she can wave to her Papa as they pull away. She giggles, seeing him run alongside, his backpack bouncing up and down comically. He stops at the edge, out of breath and room, only able to watch as she speeds away from him.

The final image he has of Sofi is the beautiful smile on her face and the heart-shaped image she makes with her sticky little hands, hands that he held in his own just moments before and, pray God, will again.

This is how one leaves Ukraine. I am an omniscient observer. I have no voice, save _truth._


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## S J Ward (Apr 4, 2022)

THE DEBT





Gripping the wheel like his life depended on it, Poldek steered the, far-too-big, van doggedly towards the awakening town of Medyka. It had certainly been a long journey; his home in Kraków left many miles behind. He released a hand and wiped rheumy sleep from his eyes.

Yesterday, he’d been sat in his library with his books and memories. Ninety-two years of memories. Now, his well-worn face stared out onto a wet road and pondered something important.

It started when his young wife, Zofia; beautiful, even in her eighth decade; stormed into his library, crying. Zofia had watched the news while Poldek had read his books. Of late, he’d withdrawn himself from this heartless world. Winding down like an ageing clock, ready to stop.



“Poldek, we have to do something! It’s not right. We have... all this.” She raised her thin arms to encompass the whole three-storey house. “These people need help, and you just sit there reading old books.”

“I told you, Zofia, we’re too old to…”

“You mean, _you’re_ too old!” Her voice raised in pitch slightly. Poldek didn’t want to upset her further but he’d started out on a battle he couldn’t win.

“We’ve done our bit, my darling.” he proffered, carefully placing his book onto the side-table and removing his glasses. Playing with the arms but paying absolute attention to his wife.

“We? We! We’ve done nothing the whole of our lives. All we ever did was to make ourselves comfortable. We never wanted for anything. Just look at this library, in a few years it’ll be gone! Who is going to benefit? We have no children. You lock yourself away in here and... read, it’s all you do. What is the purpose of it all?”

“But we’ve worked for this, Zofia. This is what we wanted. A nice home, a library and friends who…”

“Friends who are dying, Poldek. They’re dying too.” Zofia’s tirade softened.

“Okay, but in a few years, we’ll be gone.”

“Poldek? You have to see what we’ve got and what we _have_ to give.”

For a few seconds she allowed him to take stock of his home. The musty tomes lining the walls like gravestones, relics of a life, buried. The paint on the walls as aged as his own skin. And upstairs? Rooms he’d not seen for years. Rooms they payed the heating bills for; stagnant, silent and barren.

“And you owe, Poldek. You, of all people, have a debt and it’s time to pay.”

“Me? I owe no one.”

She played her trump card. “You owe Oskar! You owe him your life. Without him you wouldn’t be here at all. I know you still place stones at his grave.” Zofia allowed the enormity of what she’d said to sink in for a while, watching.

Poldek closed his eyes trying to restrain the instantaneous tears that sought freedom. He pictured a day in nineteen-forty-two. The day a twelve year old Jew escaped going to the extermination camp at Belzec and found himself, instead, at the Deutsche Emailwarenfabrik.

Herr Schindler had laid his own life on the line for a young refugee called Poldek. A boy he didn’t know. He just did... what was right. And created an un-repayable debt.

No escape now and he wept openly, apology for his own selfishness and for Oskar. Zofia moved in and trailed an arm about his shoulders. She held him tight, wishing she could hold him like this for a million lifetimes. _Her_ tower of strength. _Her_ one true love. Poldek.



“Zofia always did know what was right,” he thought and smiled. Gripping the wheel with renewed resolve he proudly stated. “Tomorrow we welcome three new families into our home.”

He drove slowly towards the Ukrainian border and the refugees. Zofia reached out placing a hand on his knee. “Their home now, Poldek. Their Home!”


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## Megan Pearson (Apr 7, 2022)

*The Sunshine Prayer*, 650wc


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## CyberWar (Apr 10, 2022)

*Cargo 200 [650 words; mature content]*

Fyodor leaned back into the couch and took a swig of _horilka_. The woman screaming in the nearby room reminded him of mom and how she had screamed whenever papa got the upper hand in their endless drunken quarrels.

“Pass me the booze, Fedya, will you?” Grigory put out his cigarette on the carpet and leaned forward from the armchair. Fyodor obliged.

“Good life they’ve been living here, these fucking _khokhols_,” Grigory remarked, taking a swig, “I used to live in a village just like this, except that we didn’t have computers or internet like here. Hell, back home we had no fucking nothing…!”

Fyodor said nothing. For guys like him or Grigory, the army had certainly been an improvement. Volunteers had it marginally better than the conscripts - even if they still had to put up with constantly-drunk, incompetent and uncaring officers, abusive NCOs and _dedovschina_, it was at least by their own choice. It was certainly incomparably better than the juvie with its endless hazing, rampant abuse and pointless violence and humiliation. After turning 18, the choice between a life of petty crime and the army had been kind of a no-brainer.

His thoughts were interrupted by Gennady who stumbled drunk from the next room, struggling to zip up his pants. Behind him, Fyodor could see a hysterically-sobbing woman crawling on the floor, and her toddler in the corner, frozen in terror.

“You fellas want another go with that bitch?” Gennady asked.

“Thanks, I’ll pass,” Grigory chuckled, “I’m all out of condoms, and I don’t want to catch everything you bunch of fuckheads have left her with!”

“Fuck it, I’ll have her one more time!” Pyotr barged in, wearing a toilet seat like a necklace, “Look what I got!”

“Why the fuck do you have the shitter seat around your neck, dumbass?” Gennady laughed out, “What are you even gonna do with it?”

“I’ll send it home,” Pyotr explained, “So mama can fit it in our outhouse.”

“You should steal something worth money for her instead, numbnuts!” Grigory advised, “That way, your mama could afford a proper civilized toilet!”

“Why? We ain’t got no sewers in our village anyway,” Pyotr shrugged and pushed past Gennady towards the woman, who started to cry and beg again, “Come here, my pretty…!”

“When you’re done, shoot the bitch!” Gennady reminded him, putting on his jacket and picking up his rifle, “The commander doesn’t want no witnesses.”

“What about her brat?” Pyotr hesitated.

“Just fucking leave him! He’ll freeze or starve to death anyway.”

The trio went outside, Grigory carrying along a stolen microwave. It was for his wife, he had said. The entire village was aroar with screams, gunshots and profanity-laden shouting. Across the street, two guys from the 2nd Company were dragging a screaming girl in a polka dot dress to their APC, an old woman tugging on their arms and beating them in vain while cursing them with every swear word under the sky.

“Let her go, you wolves! Whoresons! Fucking Nazis!”

Annoyed by her persistence despite repeatedly shoving the old lady back, one of the soldiers snapped around and gunned her down without saying a word.

“Grandma!” the girl shrieked, tearing loose. The soldier fired another burst, and she collapsed over her grandma lifeless.

“The fuck did you do that for?!” his buddy protested, “Who are we gonna fuck now?!”

“We’ll just find another,” the shooter shrugged, lighting up a cigarette, “The village is full of Banderite bitches!”

Several trucks ominously marked with a “200” rolled past along with a larger, menacing truck that Fyodor recognized as a mobile incinerator unit.

“Sometimes I wonder if we’ll be leaving Ukraine like this, like a bunch of fucking 200’s,” Gennady remarked, “All this special operation’s been fucked from the start!”

“I don’t think we’ll be leaving Ukraine at all,” Fyodor remarked with a hint of melancholy, “Not even as Cargo 200.”


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## Harper J. Cole (Apr 13, 2022)

*The Train to Poland*
by Anon


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## biograph1985 (Apr 14, 2022)

The walls tremble and hold in the hideaway beneath the basement of Alina’s two-story residence. In the 1960s, the residents of this house had surreptitiously carved out a “fallout” shelter under the basement. It amounts to a sublevel and while it would have been pointless in a nuclear holocaust circa 1962 it was surprisingly durable for the conventional weaponry of 2022. The rattling of dishes and crockery was no worse than it would have been living next to elevated train tracks.

Food is running low, and suddenly Alina finds herself thankful for the miscarriage she suffered last year. Her husband Rostislav went north to the Belarus border to fight, and an infant would have been a dangerous complication at this point. There will be time for children, Alina thought. There will be time.

The real danger was possibly being buried alive down here. The bombing had left their house structurally unsound at this point, but it was still possible to get out through the basement. For now.

Alina’s best friend Ksenia does have a child, and Ksenia planned on taking her daughter to the Polish border, but her husband Yarik had been reported missing in the conflict so she was hesitating. Occasionally she snuck over to Alina’s with the baby. Today, however, it’s too risky. Ksenia calls Alina instead.

“I don’t understand. I don’t know what to do!” Ksenia pleads through broken sobs while rocking her crying child back and forth. “What if Yarik comes back, and we are not here??”

“Yarik will understand. He knows it is not safe to stay.”

“Then why do you stay??” Ksenia asks desperately.

Suddenly Alina hears footsteps above. Heavy boots tromp along the basement floor. No one has ever been so close. Alina hangs up on Ksenia and turns off her phone.

The footsteps stop. It sounds like just one person, but they are not moving on. Did they find the entrance to the passageway? Are they waiting for someone to come out? There are guttural noises, but it’s just barely perceptible.

The tension is nearly overwhelming. Why would someone be stationed in this random basement? It could be another Ukrainian hiding from the carnage. She freezes as she hears more voices. Russian soldiers most likely. She can’t quite pick up on what they’re saying, but she hears a shot, more muffled sounds, then silence.

Alina doesn’t move for some twenty minutes, but she finds that she has one foot on the bottom step of the ladder with her body ready to ascend. She couldn’t know just how numb her mind is at this moment. Her body climbs the ladder and touches the latch. If someone is up here waiting it’s all over. But life during wartime can make uncertainty a fate worse than death. Immediate threats must be confronted, and one way or another it will be over.

She slowly lifts the hatch and peers into the room, squinting slightly from the light invading through the broken windows. As she lifts the hatch further, she sees a uniform trembling violently. A Russian soldier.

The figure groans deeply as he tries unsuccessfully to shift to his side. Alina crawls out of the hatch and approaches the solider. They are alone. The young man’s eyes find her but cannot seem to focus. He is not pleading, he is trying to concentrate on her, but he passes out. His thick coat is quickly soaked in blood. The air is acrid, but the explosions and screams are clearer. It occurs to Alina that neither one of them is leaving Ukraine.

She searches his body and finds what she wants: food rations. His firearms are gone, probably taken by whoever shot him. Alina takes a dagger off him when someone climbs in through the broken window. Another soldier.

This second intruder approaches the body but stops short when he sees Alina. He advances without touching his firearm.


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## Harper J. Cole (Apr 15, 2022)

*The President's Nightmare*
_by Anon_

Through the broken window, Vladimir Putin eyed the ruined houses of besieged Leningrad and the few emaciated passersby. He turned to look at his mother with a dead infant in her arms and no tears left to cry. It had to be Viktor.

"Vladimir Vladimirovich! Can you hear me?"
The gut-wrenching scene faded. Putin realized he had seen events that occurred ten years before his birth. He opened his eyes and looked into the worried face of Dmitry Peskov, his press secretary.
"What happened?"
"A piece of sculpture fell on your head. Don't worry, the doctor will be here in a moment."
Putin recalled how he had resolved as a boy that he won't allow the Nazis to attack his motherland ever again. He had dedicated his entire life to this sacred mission. But something had gone very wrong along the way.
He grabbed Peskov's arm. "Dmitry Sergeyevich, did I really start a war against Ukraine?"
"For heaven's sake, keep your voice down!" Peskov looked left and right. "It's a special military operation," he whispered. "To call it a war is a criminal offense."
"Oh. Right." Putin's head was getting clearer, but the anguish didn't leave. The next moment Peskov moved aside and Doctor Savelyev examined the president, then made him sit up and bandaged his head.

¤

He must have dozed off. He remembered how the doctor gave him something to drink after the X-ray examination. Now he was lying in his bedroom. Darya Krivtsova was bent over him, affectionate worry on her face. The promising high jumper was his latest crush.
"Vova, how do you feel?"
"I'm all right, Dasha."
"Doctor Savelyev said there's no brain damage, but he told me to call whenever you feel something's wrong."
Vladimir sighed. Yes, something was horribly wrong, but that was not what the doctor had in mind. The ever-growing cult of war and Stalin. The constitution of 2020 that declared ethnic Russians the master race, antagonizing the remaining one-fifth of the population. The calls to restore Russia's former glory. That lunatic Zhirinovsky had even suggested Putin be crowned emperor!
"How did we end up like this?"
Darya raised an eyebrow. "You saw me at the European Championship in Bratislava. Have you forgotten?"
"Oh, I don't mean you and me. All the things I've done. And now this wa... special military operation."
She hesitated, then said innocuously: "You can do things differently if you're no longer happy."
"How? I can't just apologize and say it was a mistake."
Darya bent closer and caressed Vladimir's cheek. "If you can't get Russia out of Ukraine, you can get us out of Russia."
The thought had occurred to him. "Yes, we better escape while we can."
Darya smiled, then suddenly turned serious. "Vova, promise me you won't take Alina, Yana and Natasha."
"Of course."
"No, promise!" She threw off her dress and bra and sat on his belly. "They all love you because you are the president, but I love _you_, Vova!" she purred softly.
He smiled. "I promise, Dasha. We'll go just the two of us." He looked at Darya's adorable perky breasts and said pensively: "I have to choose where."
"You have billions on your secret accounts, haven't you? We can go anywhere. Maldives, Costa Rica, The Bahamas..."
"No. It has to be where I can play ice hockey."
Vladimir didn't notice the annoyed grimace that appeared on Darya face for a second. Then she kissed him gently and said: "Just go to sleep, darling. You'll figure it all out tomorrow."

When Vladimir had closed his eyes, Darya adjusted his blanket, turned off the light and left the room quietly. She made a cup of tea and sat there, trying to make sense of this striking change in Vladimir.

Finally she decided she better get some sleep, too. "The morning is wiser than the evening," as the proverb said.


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