Vilena
Come back, dear soldier,
My brother in spirit and desire!
Having stopped the black war fire
Come back home alive!
Alla Bintsarovska
”Return alive!” Vika finished writing a letter, doubled up a sheet from a school notebook and put it in an envelope, then licked a sticky tape and glued. She held the letter a little while, as if trying to transfer the warmth of her hands to it, and kissed the envelope. While writing the letter, she was feeling cold and, having fallen into bed, covered up with a blanket neck-deep trying to warm up. The last phrase from the letter was running in her head, “Return alive, come back alive, brother! Come back alive.“
Half a year had passed, as her elder brother went to the East. His younger sister Victoria, wife Olesia, and mother Maryna were little b
