I’m sure you’ll think I’m a coward when you read this. But, I just couldn’t make myself fight.
I was conscripted into the Ukrainian army to fight against Russia. I agree, it is an existential struggle for our nation. It’s important.
But to be frank, I’m terrible at getting along with others. That is, people. I’m always misreading situations, saying the wrong things, taking people too literally, not reading intentions, not understanding social conventions. I knew I couldn’t help in a military unit, and I would be a problem there.
At the same time, I couldn’t leave the country. I am of draft age and healthy, after all. And I won’t try to run or make family or others hide me. They shouldn’t face risk for my own faults.
When you can’t flee, where do you go?
Away. Anywhere away from the shots, the bomb shelters, the sirens, the crowds. I needed to go somewhere they wouldn’t look for me. Fortunately, I had an idea in mind.
The Chernobyl exclusion zone. Who, I thought, in their right mind, Ukrainian or Russian, would go there and stay? And eventual cancer means nothing to me when I could be shot tomorrow if I stayed. I already volunteered there, checking my exposures and making trips in and out.
You see, when the privileged residents of the atomic city, Pripyat, were evacuated, they were told it was only for a few days. So, they left their pets behind. The dogs, improbably, survived. Even thrived and bred. We call it, with black humor, “Puppy-yat.” The dogs are, largely, friendly though somewhat feral, and preternaturally intelligent. We have to change our uniforms each year because they recognize the clothes of people who come to catch and sterilize them. They’re survivors. They’re problem-solvers. Like those dogs in Moscow who learned to ride the subway to stay warm.
I help feed them. Get the ones we can catch, sterilized to stop the cycle. Give basic medical care. Even send out the more vulnerable and friendlier ones for decontamination and adoption. So I’m one of a tiny handful of people allowed in the zone, and who knows it well.
Again, the risk of something eventual I can’t see, versus the risk of a Russian bullet, or my own people imprisoning me for my refusal to fight? I’ll take the radiation exposure.
Click. Click. Clickclickclick. Screech. A hotspot, according to my handheld Geiger counter. Okay. Don’t settle there. My chest felt tight with anxiety as I slipped in and out through the fences with dog food, water, and medicine.
The last trip was with my father’s old military backpack. Fifty pounds. I grunted, not used to the weight. Something darted out of the darkness as soon as I slipped through the last layer, whining and rubbing against my legs.
“Masha?” I whispered. An answering yelp, and I felt the familiar scar on her stomach in the dark. “There you are. Good girl. You’ll be so happy. I’ve come to live with all of you!” She licked my hand in response. Always was my favorite, like a pet of my own, even though I couldn’t adopt her. I didn’t want to separate her from her now-grown puppies, as she’d had a litter before I could get her spayed.
I felt surges of terror and a manic, strange urge to laugh as I made my camp on the third floor of a dilapidated, but still standing, concrete apartment block with a good view in all directions. Here I was, having spent years following rules about contamination- we never even sat down on the ground in the zone if we could help it- and I was moving in!
But, time and life move on. I cared for the dogs and left food and water out at different spots around the zone. I had my sister and local contacts bringing in more food when we ran out. And none of us had grown a second head (yet) from being here.
Then, one cold morning, I heard distant shouting in Russian. But, the zone is at least 30 kilometers square! To my knowledge, other than supply drops, there were no other humans within the zone. The dogs living with me barked and howled, their noses scenting invasion on the wind.
I told you I’m a coward. I hid. And anyway, who would actually suspect a draft dodger in an irradiated wasteland? I avoided the trenches and the troops as I did my duties to the dogs. But, the supplies stopped coming. I hunted hare, fox, deer, fished, and generally tried to catch anything that moved, for my dogs and myself.
But we were all hungry. I can’t describe that kind of hunger to you, reading in safe luxury. It was terrible. It seemed never to end. I could keep myself alive by finding edible plants and mushrooms and stealing MREs, but my dogs were slowly dying.
Masha showed them the way. She woke me up by growling out of the glass less window. There was one Russian soldier in the predawn light, perhaps smoking or taking a break. And Masha hadn’t eaten in three days.
It was brutal and awe-inspiring. She seemed to communicate with the other dispirited dogs surrounding my camp, just by looks and small gestures. I saw their wolf ancestors that day. Masha and two others attacked him, her powerful jaws biting through his arteries. They were hungry, yes, but I think they also somehow knew about this conflict. They never bit or attacked me, after all. He never even saw it coming, never fired a shot. They surrounded him, snuck up. It was over in ten seconds.
They dragged his body back between the three of them, dropped him in the stairwell. And then Masha, my favorite, with arterial spray still dripping off of her face, came to me, and nudged my arm. Then she led me to see what they had done.
“Good girl. Very smart,” I whispered, not knowing if more soldiers were around. They helped me drag him to my makeshift home. You’re going to think what I did is horrible, but surely this man would have killed me if he saw me, and it was his fault I couldn’t get food for the dogs any more.
I had a really tough survival knife. He was already dead. Meat is meat. I stripped him, took his jacket, weapons, and MREs, then hid the rest of his effects. And I carved him up like a pig. All the dogs in the zone ate that night.
This has been happening every few days for months now. The dogs eat nothing else. I know all the dogs in the zone. Who’s friendly, who’s aggressive, where they fit in a pack, what they like.
When the attacks here in the north eased up and Russia started seeing sense, they pulled their troops. Whoever thought digging trenches in radioactive dirt was a good idea? And I was able to get supplies again. To see my sister.
But, I decided I’m done hiding. It’s time to do my part for Ukraine. Dogs, too, are casualties of this war. And here I am, sitting among dogs that will literally eat the invaders. I think they prefer it to dog food.
I told you I wouldn’t fit into a conventional military unit. But I’ll find a way to give my country all I can. I made a deal with our military. Amnesty and decent wages, for my dogs of war. Tomorrow, my sister will take over feeding and caring for those left in the zone. And I’m shipping out to the front with a dozen of my most bloodthirsty. They attack in the dark. They surround prey. They strike lightning-fast.