This story is part of a series of essays and articles written by Ukrainian artists who decided to stay in Ukraine after Russia’s full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022. This series is produced in collaboration with the Folkowisko Association/Rozstaje.art thanks to a co-financing by the governments of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia through a grant by the International Visegrad Fund. The mission of the fund is to advance ideas for sustainable regional cooperation in Central Europe. I’m not sure how long it will take to make sense of all that has taken root deep inside us during the long months of Russia's full-scale war against Ukraine. You can’t even contemplate the making of an artistic or cultural product that is supposed to be born from experiencing this war. Our priorities are power generators, diesel fuel, axes… What kind of cultural product are you talking about? What kind of art? What we need is survival. We will make sense of this later. We will write about it later. We'll make movies. We'll have it all. Some day. Art in the time of war is situational, a kind of immediate physiological reaction to stimuli. Oftentimes, it is poster art, cutting-edge, something that quickly loses its relevance. What we discussed yesterday is forgotten today; new stimuli activate new reactions, and one-hit cultural products emerge. Once there, then gone. Although, of course, some artists manage to cough up bloody clumps of concentrated pain which will remain as powerful artifacts of our bizarre era. Some heal wounds with humor, tenderness, and a talented stringing together of kind words and unforgettable images. We hold onto this thread and keep moving forward. But this is not about me. My thread got tangled and stuck somewhere around the next turn of the winding labyrinth. It used to be different, though. My “debut war,” when I served in the Armed Forces of Ukraine (2015—2016), gave me one very particular experience. Within ten months of being in the frontline zone, I managed to transform how I usually perceived the passage of time. It was the pleasure of its absence. So in moments between military duties, I indulged in watching movies, listening to music, and writing fiction. My writing flowed easily and generously, as if for the rest of my future life, my post-war life, post-discharge, post-death, I would not write anymore. Those were routine dramas. War was what I least wanted to write about. What I mean is that I didn’t want to write about it at all. At that time, I swore that I would never go back to the army but would rather devote myself exclusively to writing. I did not keep my word, however, because last year I took up arms again. This time, a lot has changed. In fact, aside from carrying out my direct duties as a unit commander, I don’t have time for anything else. Nor do I want to do anything else. What can I write about? What storylines can I invent? Aside from the ability to create things, I suddenly lost the ability to appreciate art. During all these months of war, I haven’t read a single book. I haven’t taken an interest in any cultural event. I have not watched a single film… And then there came the music. One might ask what could be more banal than music as an instrument of self-therapy and a source of joy for the withered soul. The whole world listens to music regardless of its circumstances: in the trenches of the First World War, on board the Titanic, in the interrogation rooms of the NKVD prisons, in the cramped quarters of the Warsaw Ghetto, in the humid forests of South Vietnam, at a rally by the Lincoln Memorial, in blood-stained Sarajevo, during the Orange Revolution or the Revolution of Dignity. Music has always been a companion to history and has guided entire nations, as well as individuals, amid their various emotional states. For me, music has become my Mithril thread, strong and magical, connecting me with my life before the big war. It was a sweet time, accompanied by music from my collection of audio tapes. Hundreds of albums and playlists, from Chopin and Miles Davis to The Beatles, Tom Waits, and Run DMC. From Edith Piaf and Mylène Farmer to Blondie, Morcheeba and Billy Eilish. My music was highly varied, and I chose what to play in the evening depending on mood. The war changed everything. It took me a long time before I could start listening to music again; it seemed sacrilegious. I forced myself to be cold and callous, focused on war and danger. Music, on the other hand, immersed me in those normal states that did not mesh with the feelings of irreversibility, shock, and black stiffness. Besides, I simply couldn’t get used to my inability to listen to music on physical media. The digital format, which was unusual to me, broke me.