War

We moved from one broken building to another in search of food. My elder sister and I looked for anything we could scavenge. Our parents had died in the war in Ukraine bombed by the shelling of our house. Our house was destroyed to a rubble. We tried to resuscitate our parents but to no avail. They died in each others arms. We had hidden below a table so we got saved. Not a living soul was to be seen in the vicinity. There were dead bodies and rubble all around. Dust blew everywhere. We coughed and found a bottle of water to drink.

A portion of the area was cordoned off by the Ukrainian army .We stealthily moved past them to another building. There was a shop which had been destroyed by the shelling. We found some frozen food and some chocolates and biscuits and packs of cigarettes and water. The cigarettes and the booze were of no use to us. It was cold so on second thoughts we decided to keep the booze.

Another boy joined us .He was a little older than Tanya. We moved together. We found some guns on the bodies of army personnel. We decided to keep them. So Peter and we moved to an old school building which they had turned into a makeshift shelter for people like us. They were from the red cross. They gave us blankets and some food which we hungrily devoured. There we found some other children of our age. We played games together. School was not on so we had the entire day to do as we pleased. There was no one to look after us or scold us .We hid the stuff we had gathered on our visit here just in case we needed it later on.

At night we slept tired and dirty as we were. Tanya took good care of me and I of her. We were the only family we had so each was precious to each other. At midnight we were awakened by the sound of sirens .There had been another attack .Some of the elders moved away to newer locations where there had been shelling. Some of the others went to get new supplies of food and water.

In the morning when the sun rose we were taken to the embassy from where we would be taken to Poland. A rich family adopted us and took us into our new homes. We bathed and had food .The next day we went to a Polish school where we were to learn a new language and new subjects. The teachers were kind Peter was separated from us. At least we had each other. Tanya would cry at night because everything was so overwhelming. We had new clothes new books and a new room to stay in. Our new parents did not have any kids so they took good care of us. In the evening after a whole day at school we came back home to our new house. We could not believe our luck. But we had to be good kids as demanded by our new parents and we promised to study well .There was even a ballet class in which Tanya excelled .I got to play cricket at school .We made the most of each day and passed our time from day to day. At night we watched the news where they declared the war to be over. A cease fire had been declared. But there was no going back. Life went on .