A siren that goes off every first Wednesday of the month at 12 pm. A simple, already unnoticeable thing for Czechs and triggering for every Ukrainian.
“Fricking Russia” is the first, automatic thought. Then comes confusion. “Is my safe place suffering now too? Was the help not enough? Have I missed something when reading the news this morning?”
“Where should we go?” — my roommate asked me.
“Away from glass windows, that’s for sure” is the response I learned from my parents even before the full-scale war started.
We sat in the hall for a few minutes, waiting for it to stop. I recalled all the sirens I heard when I was in Ukraine. Every time I felt the ground shaking after a rocket hit something nearby, the smell of a building burning in the next district in the middle of the night, the sound of a rocket flying over my head.
The feeling of guilt comes next. I didn’t suffer at all, compared to many others. I am alive and well in the safety that Prague can provide, my house is still standing, and my family and friends are all alive.
The siren is over, now comes the curiosity.
“What was that?” — I asked a Ukrainian-speaking cleaning lady.
“What was what?”
“The siren, what is it for?”
“What siren?”
…
“Was this even real?” I ask myself. I look over at my roommate, she heard it too, are we both crazy?
Later that day I asked the RA for details and she said they just forgot to warn us about it. I’m still shaking a little every time I hear it.
Will I ever get used to it?