Volyn forest

I celebrated my birthday somewhere in Polissia, either in Zhytomyr or in Rivne region, at a gas station near the forest. On the same day, he died in a completely different forest... I did not know him personally, just as I do not know most of the fighters of our brigade. But we are already going to his homeland, to Volyn, to present the flag and chevron to his parents. On the same day, we are supposed to arrive, it turns out to be his mother's birthday, and a colleague buys a small cake....

On Friday morning and afternoon, we work at the landfill, which is also surrounded by forest. We leave after lunch and arrive in Kovel at night. We spend the night in a hotel located a little outside the city, in the forest. On Saturday, we have to spend half the day repairing the car at the service station, then another hour's drive through the forest to the north.

Parents meet us, it seems they keep them up well. His father has strong, calloused hands, apparently, he worked a lot physically. He says that he wanted to mobilize into the army, his son drove him three times, but they did not take him because of his disability. Then the son mobilized, he was so inspired, and happy that he was accepted to Azov. There, he says, he met real friends. We go into the house to drink coffee and cake, and talk.

His sister is wearing a black hoodie with a weird skeleton print on the back. This picture seemed to evoke black metal, this direction of music that I used to listen to. She is very beautiful and sad. She brings us coffee and I notice that she has a gorgeous manicure.

After the conversation, we go to the cemetery. Mother and daughter get into the car with us, father rides a motorcycle. We put a flag on the grave. I look at the photo, at the grave, and there I notice that the date of death is my birthday.

The father tells about how his son loved the forest and went there very often... what kind of forest, I asked, is this one? Because there the forest seemed to be all around, everywhere. No, not this one, but that one, pointing in the other direction. And I fixed it in my memory. I have already traveled around Volyn, in another part of it. One, during the coronavirus spring. Maybe one day it will be time to come to this forest too...

When we hug goodbye to relatives, a colleague compliments the prince on his sister's hoodie. And what is it, I ask? Well, because I thought, maybe this is an album of some group. This is "The Last Supper," says a colleague. But instead of people, there are skeletons, which could add some creepiness if it was in other times... The sister says that her brother had such patch (or badge) and she ordered this print.

We leave this cemetery on the side of a seemingly God-forsaken village to go on a long journey. He died in a forest reminiscent of the scenes of a post-apocalyptic film, where in many areas only the trunks of trees that cut like needles remained. He died in the forest in the East to protect the country and this Volyn forest...