The summer heat sprawls on my skin like a thick cover of wet glue. We lie around on our bed with no sheets, waiting for the laundry to finish. I close my eyes and dream of a tiny breeze of fresh air, barely getting through the dusty orange light of a motionless room.
You gently stroke my right foot with your forefinger.
“Missile hit Chernihiv city center,” you say. “There are four wounded and two dead so far.”
“At night?” I ask, vaguely recalling the distant sound of an air raid alarm piercing through my sleep.
“No, just now,” you answer blankly.
We lie still, letting the wet sticky heat of summer drown us in silence.
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Olha Svyripa is a writer and translator from Ukraine. Her first texts, covering the first twenty-four hours of the war in Ukraine, were published in Atticus Review in 2023.
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Jury S. Judge is an internationally published artist, writer, poet, and cartoonist. Her Astronomy Comedy cartoons were published in The Lowell Observer. She was interviewed on the television news program NAZ Today for her work as a cartoonist. Her artwork has been featured in over one hundred thirty-five literary magazines, including the covers of Blue Mesa Review, 3 Elements Review, Glass Mountain, and Levitate. She has also been interviewed by Streetlight Magazine and The Antonym. She graduated Magna Cum Laude with a BFA from the University of Houston, Clear Lake in 2014.
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